Movie Details
| Title: | Kingdom of the Spiders | |
| Director: | Bud Cardos | |
| Year: | 1977 | |
| Genre: | Science Fiction | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 07.12.06 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (1)
- The Dark
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 07.12.06 | Weird Wednesday | William Shatner vs. tons and tons of tarantulas... The last 20 or so minutes of this movie were pretty great... and like great in a genuinely effective way... but the movie spends a long time revving its engines before actually burning rubber. However, a few scenes still stand out: After his cow and dog have both died, Woody Strode listens to the scientist girl tell him that it's not plague or bacteria that killed them but rather spider venom. "oh," he says, "maybe that spider hill has something to do with it." Lo and behold, this huge mound of dirt with hundreds and hundreds of tarantulas has popped up in his back yard... yet the amount of screen time spent lamenting the possible quarantine of his crop makes this small tiny little detail sort of not something you'd think to overlook. Later in the picture, they try to kill the spiders with really strong poison via crop duster. The pilot takes flight and gets to spreading the poison around before finding hundreds and hundreds of spiders in the cockpit with him. He proceeds to screem like a little nancy girl while doing tricks and loopty loops in the air, seeding the whole town with poison, before crashing directly into a garage where Shatner's standing. It's actually a pretty cool shot where the plane crashes and we see the flaming carnage unfold as the camera dollies out, but mostly it's the pilot's girly screams that made me laugh. Finally, after breaking down into fitful sobs at assumed news of quarantining the cattle, Woody Strode's wife finds herself trapped in her house with hundreds and hundreds of spiders. She tries fending them off with a pistol, shooting randomly at the floor as she backs up. Yikes! A big ol spider has landed on her hand! I guess shaking it off is too much trouble for her though because she just raises her arm out and shoots it... or the spider on it... either way: pretty hilarious. Shatner also gives us a few choice moments, most of them when he puts on his Mr. Romance hat but also a terribly gripping scene where hundreds and hundreds of spiders crash through a window and land all over him and bite him a few times. That's sort of taken for granted thouugh... You really only have to know that Shatner is in the movie to know there will be awesomely over-acted bits from him whenever the director isn't looking. It was a fun movie... but a bit slow for the first hour or so. Maybe that was because it was a little warm in the theater though... that never helps the pacing. UPDATE: oh my god I forgot to mention two of my biggest laughs in the entire movie!!! both are really quick bits and both involve Shatner... and both are awesome. The first is.... I don't even feel like putting this in context... there's just a bunch of spiders (hundreds and hundreds) on the ground and, for whatever reason, Shatner has to run across the way to get... somewhere. It's like the owners of every single tarantula were on set right off-camera watching to make sure their babies weren't hurt or something because Shatner does the goofiest hopscotch over every one... it's just so funny to watch. Actually his treatment of all the spiders is funny to watch... every time one pops up on his hand and he does that little "aaahiiieee!" and shakes it off, he's the best actor in the world. Here though, he's just trying not to step on any spiders. side note: I guess all those loving tarantula-owners weren't around for the later scenes in which spider after spider is seen getting squished, stomped, crushed, stampeded, and set on fire. Definitely no ASPCA going on here... The second awesome Shatner moment is when he goes to grab his niece off of a bed crawling with hundreds of spiders, then... I guess more focused on clearing the bedspread of spiders than actually saving the little girl, he actively THROWS HER DOWN... onto a pile of hundreds AND HUNDREDS of spiders... just so he can shake the ones on the bed off... In the next cut, he treats her like a football, whipping her around in his arms like he's ready to throw her... the kid pretty much leaves the movie after that. ahh good times. UPDATE AGAIN: So... last night I had a dream that hundreds and hundreds of big huge furry tarantulas were in my apartment. I didn't wake up screaming or anything but I can't say it was a nice dream... so thanks Shatner, for making me feel like a kid again. |
