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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
Film:5
DVD:10
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| Replaces
EC's 2002 review of the GoodTimes DVD |
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Coming
near the end of the "When Animals Attack!" subgenre of the '70s,
Kingdom of the Spiders is a competently
made, competently acted and thoroughly mediocre low budget horror
flick. The movie's chief purpose is to serve as historical artifact
— this, folks, is how William Shatner paid the bills before Star
Trek: The Motion Picture. |
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In
a role John Agar would've played had the film been made 20 years
earlier, Shatner is "Rack" Hansen, cowboy veterinarian
in a small desert ranching community in Arizona. He's got a mystery
on his hands: livestock in the area are inexplicably dropping
dead. When the prize calf of farmer Walt Colby (Keoma's
Woody Strode) suddenly dies, the puzzled Hansen sends some bio
samples to the state university. The university sends back a pretty
female scientist, Dr. Diane Ashley (Tiffany Bolling,
The
Centerfold Girls), to investigate. The dead calf,
the veterinarian is told, was pumped full of spider venom. |
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At
first Hansen scoffs at the idea. Spiders can't bring down cattle,
he maintains. But the tests are conclusive, and Ashley's hypothesis
is confirmed when a huge spider hill is located on Colby's farm.
Ashley theorizes that the hill contains thousands of tarantulas,
each possessing venom five times stronger than normal. Mutated
by continuous exposure to chemical pesticides and driven to seek
new sources of food, the spiders have become unnaturally aggressive.
After Colby's dog is found dead the embittered farmer sets the
hill alight with flaming gasoline. The spiders get their revenge,
however; the next day Colby is bitten in his truck while driving
to town and killed. The situation escalates when hundreds of other
spider hills are discovered in the area. Fearing that the news
will disrupt the upcoming county fair and negatively impact commerce,
the town mayor orders the hills doused with DDT while keeping
things quiet. (Jaws, anyone?) Ashley's
scientific protests fall on deaf ears. |
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Things
really start to get serious as a virtual army of "millions"
of super-tarantulas begins its march on the town, attacking
every living thing in their path. Panic sets in as people start
dying, setting off a riot on the town's main drag. (Try stomping
on them, you idiots!) Rescuing his niece from the rampaging
arachnids, Doc Hansen leads Ashley and a small group of others
to temporary safety within a resort lodge outside of town, in
which they barricade themselves. But the spiders are everywhere
now. The besieged humans can't seem to stop them from getting
in...
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Kingdom
of the Spiders
is strictly an old-fashioned horror yarn as opposed to an exploitation
flick. It's PG-rated fare devoid of any gore or nudity. Lots of
real tarantulas are used in the movie but there simply aren't
enough of them (real or fake) to make the story convincing. In
the barricaded lodge, when the idea of escape is floated, Ashley
shoots it down by saying there are simply too many of the spiders
outside to get away. ("We'll never make it!") The film
then cuts to an exterior shot showing about 20 or 30 of the critters
in the driveway — hardly an "army". It doesn't help that the film
takes its sweet time getting up to speed, spending an inordinate
amount of time on Hansen's personal life. (Are we really supposed
to care about the relationship between him and his brother's wife?)
I wanted more spider attacks, damn it, not scenes of Shatner sucking
in his gut to flirt with the hot blonde scientist! When the film
finally gets 'round to its semi-eerie, Twilight Zone-style
ending, the payoff is ruined by the use of a really fake-looking
matte painting. I suppose I should've taken the horribly cornpone
(i.e., shitkicker) country and western song that opens the movie
as a warning sign. |
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Basically,
KOTS isn't scary or creepy enough
to be truly memorable, nor is it cheesy/goofy enough to be unintentionally
funny. It merely exists — a passable time-waster, nothing more.
(There is one quintessential Shatner scene, however, when ol'
Bill actually has some real tarantulas crawling all over him.
The bit with the panicked townsfolk is good for a laugh, too.)
Granted, the attentive viewer can glean a couple of valuable Life
Lessons from the film... Number One: If you're ever driving down
the road and spiders start crawling on you and biting you, immediately
stop the vehicle and get out. Screaming and driving over a
cliff is not the best course of action. Number Two: Never, ever
shoot spiders off your body with a pistol. Even big spiders. |
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| I
may not share the affection for KOTS
of many cult/horror aficionados but I will echo their enthusiastic
sentiment for this new "special edition" release from
Shout! Factory. It's absolutely terrific, blowing the old fullframe
GoodTimes DVD to smithereens. Anyone still holding on to that
2002 disc can set it out in the next yard sale or just toss it
in the trash. |
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Finally presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1
(anamorphically enhanced), the film looks as good here as it probably
did playing the drive-in circuit during the Carter Administration.
Colors are spot-on, and apart from the studio logo and opening
credits — which are a little beat up and inordinately grainy —
the source print is impeccable. A clean mono audio track compliments
the improved image quality. The redneck pop and bombastic stock
music cues come through loud and clear; dialog is always easily
understandable. |
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Some great extras
are onboard. The audio commentary (with director John "Bud" Cardos,
producer Igo Kantor, cinematographer John Morrill and spider wrangler
Jim Brockett) is well worthwhile, touching on just about everything
you'd care to know about the film's production. Supplementing
the commentary are a trio of featurettes. William Shatner — seemingly
pleased to discuss something that has nothing to do with Star
Trek — reminisces about the making of KOTS
in a nearly 17-minute interview, offering his thoughts on environmentalism,
the potential for a never-realized sequel (Part 2 was to begin
with Rack Hansen waking up in an insane asylum!), and having a
live tarantula spirit-gummed to his face. Hollywood spider wrangler
Jim Brockett and some of his eight-legged friends appear on camera
in a 12½-minute video piece in which he demonstrates the
different kinds of tarantulas used in movies, from the aggressive
species used only for insert shots to the milder types able to
work with the actors. The third video interview (4:40) is with
co-writer Stephen Lodge, who briefly describes some of the changes
made to his original story outline. |
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Topping things off are the original theatrical
trailer, an image gallery of production stills/pressbook art,
and a 17-minute reel of Super 8 footage (much of it with sound)
shot 'behind the scenes' on location. Kudos to Shout! Factory
for this 'A' quality presentation of an independent B movie. 1/25/10 |
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