31 Days of Horror 2020 Day 08 Kingdom of the Spiders

TITLE-Kingdom of the Spiders
SOURCE-DVD Rip on Youtube

Back in the 70s,this film came out in 76 or 77,there was plenty of creature run amuck films.I had seen lots of these. Thanks mostly to late night syndicated tv. Seen Tarantulas Deadly Cargo,which I reviewed here for 31 Days of Horror a few years ago,seen Grizzly,seen SSSSSSSSSSSS,another I reviewed here of 31 Days of Horror a few years ago. But until earlier this year I had never seen Kingdom of the Spiders.

That changed back in the spring. We were all kinda stuck at home.Bat32 of Sleaze Fiend Magazine fame wanted to bring back his old podcast. Exploited Cinema had been one of the best cult/sleazy movie podcasts for years. So Bat rounded up Zach from the Behind the Mask Podcast and asked me to come on. The film on discussion was of course Kingdom of the Spiders. Bat had found 2 copies of this film on youtube. One was a rip of the Shout/Scream Factory DVD release. The other was a VHS rip of when this filmed aired on Commander USA years ago.

Set in the Southwest this is a fairly entertaining PG rated creature feature. William Shatner(Rack in
this movie) is a vet. He also is helping out his dead brother's wife and daughter. He gets called to Woody Strode's farm.

Woody Strode and his wife at the farm

Seems Strode's cow is sick. Shatner gets there the cow is dead and he sends the body off to see why it died. Strode  and his wife are worried it is the black plague and they will get quarentined. Strode is a ex football player/pro wrestler. In an interview Shat talks about how Strode kept in amazing shape,even at the age of 62 when this film was made. Seems Strode would do all kinds of push ups every day. One handed,Elevated,diamonds "He could even do no handed ones" Shatner joked.

After finding out thru various tests that the cow died from spider venom,Shat calls in some help. This  lets Tiffany Bolling
to enter the film. She gets to fuck around with spiders,be Shat's love interest and a chance to get a big time movie role. Before this Bolling ,while a decent star on tv,had mostly done low budget films that are cult films now. Now she is getting a chance to be in a pic that costs 1 million bucks and has the Shat as her co star!

The rest of the cast and the film are decent. This film feels like either a big budget made for tv mid 70s horror or a low budget theatrical mid 70s horror. It had a 1 millon dollar budget,but so did Dawn of the Dead. And Dawn is a way more impressive film. Cause with Kingdom of the Spiders besides all the spiders,almost all the spiders we see in the film is real spiders,the only other things in the film that could have cost a decent amount is the water tower stunt,the plane crash stunt and of course The Shat!

In the deaths is where the films lower budget shows. It is odd with the director being a former stuntman but the film having so few stunts. For example Woody Strode's death. He is in his truck heading somewhere. Spiders start to crawl out from under and behind the seat and all over Strode. We see them on his face. The truck starts to swerve,cut away and we hear the truck crash. Most of the people that die we see the aftermath. In which it looks like the FX team ran to Dollar General 2 days after Halloween and bought a bunch of bags of clearence spider webs. The water tower crash looks great. Looks like something you would see in a big budget film of the era.

Then you got the biggest stunt in the film. After being told by Tiffany and the Shat that using poison on the spiders is not a good idea,the spiders are attacking dogs and cows and humans cause all of their normal food has been killed off by DDT. No not Jake the Snake's finishing move ! The now banned pesticide from the 70s. So a local yokel fills his cropduster plane up with some spider poison and flies all over the town dumping it. He forgot to check his plane before heading up and ends up with a pile of spiders all over him. Causing him to crash the plane and a great explosion happens. This was damn impressive. And the action highlight of the film.

The Shat gets attacked by spiders!

There is a hotel/bar and grill in town. Ran by this older redhead lady. Tiffany is staying there. Shat ends up taking his sister in law and niece there. The last 20 minutes of the film is what is left of our cast in this place.Boarding it all up like Night of the Living Dead. I guess Shatner knew the plane stunt was pretty damn good,and in the interview I saw he talked about how "I was in great shape back then. Wanted to do a stunt". The power goes out,the Shat goes into the basement to fuck with the breakers.
Spiders attack and he stumbles back to the others with a giant spider on his cheek biting him. Now any one else in the film that got bit died. But not the Shat. He is too tough for this venom that can kill huge cows. You get to see this great one long take part with Shatner stumbling into frame with the spider biting him he falls to the floor in perfect view of the camera. It is a great scene.

The next morning the few living people are listening to the radio. Shatner prys a few of the boards off a window. Looks out... and sees...THAT THE ENTIRE TOWN IS COVERED IN HUGE THICK SPIDER WEBS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The END!!!!!!

I loved the fuck out of this film. It gets better with each viewing. Everything about it is just average. But all of that blends so well you get a film that is really so much more than the sum of it's parts. The acting is good from the names I mentioned to the smaller parts like the hillbilly with the flat tire. Or the gas station owner he tries to fight off a spider by spitting tobacco juice at it. The film looks nice and has some great shots of the southwest scenery. The music.,fuck I haven't talked about the music yet.

The score is all music from library tracks. All of which was used on the original Twilight Zone tv show. At first the score wasn't working for me. Not far into the film the score started working for me. THe few actual songs in the movie aren't bad. The feel like 70s early pop county stuff. So nothing I would buy but also nothing I hate.

Besides the DVD release from Shout Factory there is a Blu Ray from Code Red. Not sure I would pay what they want for it. If I see the DVD for say 15 bucks or less I will grab it.

Kingdom of the Spiders gets a C+