Search - Kingdom Of The Spiders on DVD

Rampaging tarantulas make meal of Arizona residents.

P. Ferrigno | Melbourne, Victoria Australia | 10/03/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"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."

Arachnid fans should web this up quickly !

D. Steigman | USA | 10/23/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"On January 19, 2010, Shout! Factory will unleash the Kingdom of the Spiders Special Edition on DVD. This is the 70's bug flick with William Star Trek Shatner as a vet fighting off spiders who are looking to take over an entire town. The spiders (tarantulas)are mad at the pesticides in their food and attack mankind..Very chilling. This is a chilling underrated movie that no bug horror film fan should miss. Directed by John Bud Carlos, this is far superior to movies like Ants! , Tarantulas,the Deadly Cargo, Empire of the Ants,etc. While there are no giant spiders (like Giant Spider Invasion) this movie contains hundreds(thousands maybe?)of nice size hairy spiders crawling & webbing their way toward mankind. This was released from Goodtimes full frame & uncut - now we can see it uncut and in its original aspect ratio...

Features include : all-new anamorphic widescreen transfer of the film, this Special Edition DVD release contains an all-new interview with William Shatner; an in-depth commentary featuring director John Bud Cardos, producer Igor Kantor, spider wrangler Jim Brockett and cinematographer John Morrill, moderated by HOSTEL producer Scott Spiegel and Lee Christian; rare behind-the-scenes footage; "Jim Brockett: Spider Wrangler" featurette; poster gallery and the original theatrical trailer.

This is the holy grail DVD release of Kingdom of the Spiders & is not to be missed..

Thank you Shout Factory !

"

GOODTIMES WITH RACK

T. A. Hansen | eagan, mn USA | 06/07/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"The quality of this DVD is suprisingly good, considering it's from Goodtimes Video. Like another reviewer stated, too bad it's fullframe.This is a entertaining movie. For the money, I can't think of any reason why you shouldn't get this. It's just a fun movie. There must be some reason this movie works and other movie with bigger budgets fail. I can just imagine the director gathering the cast and crew and telling them, look, I know we're not making Citizen Kane, but let's make a good movie. Something like that. The cast all give solid performances and seem to be having fun. A scene that is typical is when the sheriff tries to tell a woman that her husband is dead. He is unable with words, he grabs her in silence, hugs her, and the camera views them from the distance. I didn't expect that. Kinda moving."

Shatner vs Spiders

Fruit Loop | Down South | 06/21/2006

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Captain Kirk takes on the Arachnid Empire in this horribly great 70s horror flick. If you can ignore the bad acting, the cheesy effects, and last but not least, the fact that tarantulas don't spin webs, it's worth a look. William Shatner gives a much better performance than he did in most of his classic series, and watching spiders crawl over corpses is always creepy. Low budget classic is well worth a look."