Kingdom of the Spiders | | Cast : | William Shatner, Tiffany Bolling | | Director : | John 'Bud' Cardos | | Studio : | Good Times Home Vide | | Format : | Color | | Released Date : | November , 1977 | | DVD Released Date : | October 01, 2002 | | Language : | English (Dubbed) | | Audience Rating : | PG (Parental Guidance Suggested) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | June 27, 2005 | | Summary | I LOVED IT!! | Content
 | Okay, so it is a b-rated movie but I absolutley LOVED it. It was creepy and the image of these spiders was stuck in my head for awhile! Eeeewww!! Watch it - you'll like it! |
| Rating | | | Date | February 17, 2005 | | Summary | SICkening to watch. Waste of some great actors. | Content
| Bill Shatner likes to joke about this movie and how bad it was, but in 1977, he was still a working actor and had to take offers for work whenever he could. Thank god, the Star Trek Movies came along when they did. Anyway this is a low budget film and it has second rate everything in it. Bad script, both fake and real spiders used in various scenes, and a very predictable ending. Most of the actors were in other better movies, why did they appear in this? Who knows? Anyway only three years after this movie was made, Bill Shatner returned to the starship Enterprise, and the real winners were both him and Star Trek fans. |
| Rating | | | Date | February 07, 2005 | | Summary | Chemical toilets ain't got nothin' on these tarantulas. | Content
| Kingdom of the Spiders (John "Bud" Cardos, 1977)
I remember first seeing this movie on television (it must have been its TV premiere, as it was no more than a year after its theatrical release) back in the late seventies and being terrified of it. Well, twenty-five years later, someone decided to release a twenty-fifth anniversary DVD. Mutant tarantulas and Bill Shatner-- how could I resist?
There is a difference between good bad films (Dark Star, for example) and bad bad films (The Beast Within, for example). The best way to delineate it is to call it the Cheese Factor. The higher the cheese factor, the better the movie, pure and simple. (What defines the cheese factor is a matter of discussion. Many people think Attack of the Killer Tomatoes has one of the highest cheese factors on the planet. I am not one of them.) Kingdom of the Spiders has Cheez Whiz coming out its ears. Shatner and his then-wife, Marcy Lafferty (Star Trek: The Motion Picture), seem to be in a race to prove once and for all which of them can out-bad-act the other one. Spaghetti-western staple Woody Strode turns in a performance that would be great if his part weren't so horribly written. Playboy centerfold Tiffany Bolling, as the female lead, turns in the kind of performance one would expect of a Playboy centerfold. The spiders are roughly as terrifying as fruit bats. Even the cows look like they'd rather be in another movie. This, folks, is classic cheese.
It all starts when a rancher (Strode)'s prize calf gets sick. He calls in the local vet, Rack Hansen (Shatner), who's never seen anything like it. He sends some samples up to Flagstaff, who send them back with an entomologist (Bolling) who brings dire warning-- the calf was killed by spider venom. Everyone's concerned that the farm will be quarantined except the mayor (veteran character actor Roy Engel), who's concerned that such a quarantine will ruin the 1977 Verde Valley County Fair, thus setting the scene as so many mayors have done in so many monster movies. You know what's coming next if you've seen any two of them.
Kingdom of the Spiders features absolutely awful special effects (check out the very last scene, especially), truly terrible acting, and a horrid script. About the only good thing one can say about it is that it's perfectly-paced. There's never a moment where the film drags, though it does threaten to a few times at the beginning. Despite all of the above, however, if you're looking for a really good bad movie, pick this up. ** |
| Rating | | | Date | October 27, 2004 | | Summary | Scares the _____ out of me! | Content
| This movie though it is really old is very scary for me both because it is about spiders which I hate and the idea that things could really do this if us humans destroy their food. I have always been scared when watching this movie and will never change. Watch it and see for yourself!! |
| Rating | | | Date | October 03, 2004 | | Summary | Rampaging tarantulas make meal of Arizona residents. | Content
| Cult 1977 low budget "nature gone haywire" film with Arizona veterinarian William Shatner ( that's about as far away from the bridge of the USS Enterprise as you can get ! ) firstly investigating unexplained livestock deaths. After Shatner takes bio samples from the dead animals and sends them off for analysis, then enter ice cool blonde entomologist Tiffany Boling to explain the animals are succumbing to massive doses of spider venom. Shattered farmer Woody Strode then shows Shatner and Boling a huge dirt mound seething with hairy, agressive tarantulas, and it soon becomes apparent that something is very wrong with the local spider population !
I first saw this film theatrically upon it's release back in 1978, and 25 + years later, when you stack it up against other "bugs on the rampage" films like "Frogs", "It Happened at Lakewood Manor" & "The Naked Jungle"....it holds up as one of the best. Sure, its as cheesy as a block of cheddar, and Shatner is a hammy actor, but it's a real guilty pleasure movie and seems to tick along quite well without getting bogged down with boring characterisations, or long winded explanations about why the spiders are now hunting much larger prey !
For my money, all the actors involved in this one deserve bravery awards for sharing the screen with hundreds and hundreds of genuine LIVE Mexican red knee tarantulas. On top of that most of the key cast members ( Shatner, Bolling, Strode, Dressler, Hughes & Lafferty ) get attacked and covered in these creepy arachnids. Nowadays, film makers would just cheat and use CGI effects, but back in low budget productions in 1977, they just tipped a bucket of real tarantulas on the actors and filmed the shot.....YECCH ! Well know Hollywood animal trainer's Lou Schumacher & Jim Brockett who have worked on similar projects such as "Day of the Animals", "Night of the Lepus", "Alligator" & "Dracula"s Dog" supplied & wrangled the spiders for KOTS, and I would have asked for a hotel room a long, long way away from Lou & Jims.....lest some of their "pets" went out for a stroll.
Although this release by Good Times DVD is only a mono soundtrack and a standard full frame presentation, the print is excellent and the transfer has been done very well. If you're a fan of this genre of horror movie, the "Kingdom Of The Spiders" definitely belongs in your DVD collection. |
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