Kingdom of the Spiders

Kingdom of the Spiders
Directed by	John "Bud" Cardos
Screenplay by	Alan Caillou Richard Robinson
Story by	Stephen Lodge Jeffrey M. Sneller
Produced by	James Bond Johnson Henry Fownes Igo Kantor Jeffrey M. Sneller
Starring	William Shatner Tiffany Bolling Woody Strode Lieux Dressler
Cinematography	John Arthur Morrill
Edited by	Igo Kantor, Steven Zaillian
Music by	Dorsey Burnette
Distributed by	Dimension Pictures
Release date	November 23, 1977 (1977-11-23)
Running time	97 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$500,000
Box office	$17,000,000

Kingdom of the Spiders is a 1977 horror science-fiction film directed by John "Bud" Cardos and produced by Igo Kantor, Jeffrey M. Sneller and James Bond Johnson. The screenplay is credited to Richard Robinson and Alan Caillou, from an original story by Jeffrey M. Sneller and Stephen Lodge. The film was released by Dimension Pictures (not to be confused with the distributor Dimension Films, which released the 1995 slasher film Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers.) It stars William Shatner (of Star Trek fame), Tiffany Bolling, Woody Strode, Lieux Dressler, and Altovise Davis.

The film is one of the better-remembered entries in the "nature on the rampage" subgenre of science fiction/horror films in the 1970s, due in part to its memorable scenes of people and animals being attacked by tarantulas; its availability on home video and airing on cable television, particularly on the USA Network; but primarily because of Shatner's starring role.

Plot

Robert "Rack" Hansen (William Shatner), a veterinarian in rural Verde Valley, Arizona, United States, receives an urgent call from a local farmer, Walter Colby (Woody Strode). Colby is upset because his prize calf has become sick for no apparent reason, and brings the animal to Hansen's laboratory. Hansen examines the calf, which dies shortly afterward. Hansen tells Colby he cannot explain what made the animal so ill so quickly, but takes samples of the calf's blood to a university lab in Flagstaff.

A few days later, Diane Ashley (Bolling), an arachnologist, arrives looking for Hansen. Ashley tells Hansen that the calf was killed by a massive dose of spider venom, which Hansen greets with skepticism. Undaunted, Ashley tells him the problem is serious and that she wishes to examine the animal's carcass and the area where it became sick. Hansen escorts Ashley to Colby's farm. Moments after they arrive, Colby's wife, Birch (Altovise Davis), discovers their dog is dead. Ashley performs a quick chemical test on the dog's carcass and concludes that like the calf, it died from a massive injection of spider venom. Hansen is incredulous, until Colby states that he recently found a massive "spider hill" on a back section of his farmland. He takes Hansen and Ashley to the hill, which is covered with tarantulas. Ashley theorizes that the tarantulas are converging together due to the heavy use of pesticides, which are eradicating their natural food supply. In order to survive, the spiders are joining forces to attack and eat larger animals.

Hansen and Ashley return to the Colby farm. As the scientists and the Colbys are walking past a barn, a bull stampedes out; it is being attacked by tarantulas. Ashley notes that the spiders likely will not be afraid to attack people either. Colby douses the spider hill with gasoline and lights it on fire, seemingly destroying the spider menace. However, many of the spiders escape out of a tunnel. Colby is attacked in his truck the next day, sending it over the side of a hill and killing him. Hansen happens upon the accident scene and helps the sheriff, Gene Smith (David McLean), examine the wreckage. Colby's body is found encased in a cocoon of spider webs. Meanwhile, Ashley is notified by her colleagues that a sample of venom from one of the spiders is five times more toxic than normal. Hansen is then told by the sheriff that several more spider hills have been located on Colby's property.

Hansen, Ashley and the sheriff examine the hills along with the mayor of Camp Verde (Roy Engel), who orders the sheriff to spray the hills and the surrounding countryside with a pesticide. Ashley protests, arguing that pesticide use is what caused the problem to begin with and that the town would be better off using birds and rats (tarantulas' enemies in nature) to eradicate them. The mayor dismisses the idea, fearing that having a large number of spiders and rats all over the countryside will scare away patrons of the annual county fair. A crop duster is enlisted to spray the pesticide. Once the pilot is airborne, he is attacked by tarantulas, and crashes the plane before he can disperse the spray.

The spiders begin their assault on the local residents, killing Birch and Hansen's sister-in-law, Terri (Marcy Lafferty). Hansen arrives at their home and rescues Terri's daughter, Linda from the spiders. Hansen and Ashley take Linda to the Washburn Lodge. They consult with the sheriff, who tells them that the spiders are everywhere and Camp Verde cut off from the outside world. Smith drives into town, while Hansen and the other survivors at the lodge plan to load up an RV and escape. However, the spiders trap them in the lodge, and they barricade themselves inside. Meanwhile, Smith arrives in Camp Verde and finds the town under siege by the spiders. Smith tries to escape, but is killed when another car crashes into a support post under the town's water tower, causing it to fall on his vehicle.

Back at the lodge, the power goes out, and Hansen is forced to venture into the lodge's basement to change a blown fuse. He succeeds, but is besieged by spiders who break through one of the basement windows, by using their combined weight. He makes it upstairs just in time to be saved by Ashley.

The film concludes the next day, with the survivors rigging up a radio receiver and listening for news of the attacks. To their surprise, the radio broadcast doesn't mention the attacks, indicating that the outside world is oblivious to what has happened. Hansen pries off the boards from one of the lodge's windows, and discovers that the entire building is encased in a giant web cocoon. The camera pulls back, and all of Camp Verde is encased in cocoons as well.

Influences and criticism

Kingdom of the Spiders was one of several horror and science fiction films of the 1970s that reflected a growing sentiment of environmentalism in North America, such as Day of the Animals, Night of the Lepus, Killer Bees, Frogs and Silent Running. It also reflected a horror trend that suggested that mankind's worst enemy was not supernatural monsters, but creatures already present in nature, as seen in Jaws and the numerous copycat films that arrived in its wake, as well as the Alfred Hitchcock classic The Birds.

A particular parallel to Jaws is that, in both films, local civic officials are more concerned with making money from tourism than with properly dealing with a very serious environmental problem. In both films, these decisions lead to unsuccessful attempts to eradicate the "monsters", ultimately with horrific consequences.

Many viewers also feel that the film borrows from George A. Romero's famous horror film Night of the Living Dead, in that both films feature a group of survivors banding together and barricading themselves in a building to withstand the onslaught of the villainous creatures. However, whereas almost all of Night of the Living Dead is set inside a house, the similar development in Kingdom of the Spiders occurs mainly in the final third of the film.

It is remembered as either one of the best or one of the worst of the "nature on the rampage" subgenre.

Production

Kantor told Fangoria magazine in 1998 that the film did indeed use 5,000 of the large, hairy spiders, though a number of rubber model spiders were also used during production. The live tarantulas were procurred by offering Mexican spider wranglers US$10 for each live tarantula they could find; this meant that $50,000 of the film's $500,000 budget went towards the purchase of spiders.

The large amount of tarantulas kept on-hand led to some unusual production difficulties. Not only did each spider have to be kept warm, but because of the creatures' cannibalistic tendencies, all 5,000 spiders had to be kept in separate containers. Additionally, tarantulas are usually shy around people, so fans and air tubes often had to be used to get the spiders to walk towards their "victims". Indeed, in a number of the scenes where the tarantulas are "attacking" people, it is obvious to the viewer that the spiders are merely moving around, usually away from their intended victims.

Contrary to popular belief, the venom of most tarantulas is not dangerous to humans, causing no more harm than a bee sting (unless the person is allergic to the venom). The worst injury most of the actors suffered was troublesome itching caused by the spiders shedding their hair (Tarantula fur has been used to make itching powder sold in joke and novelty stores).

Due to the film's low budget, most of the music used in the film (particularly the "startle cues") was taken from the logs of stock music used on suspense TV series. For example, most of the music used in the film during the scenes with the spiders can also be heard in notable episodes of The Twilight Zone, including "To Serve Man" and "The Invaders", as well as in at least one episode of The Fugitive. The country music songs heard on the radio in the movie, as well as over the opening and closing credits, were performed by country singer Dorsey Burnette.

Although Shatner and Bolling were ostensibly the "stars" of the film, many who have seen it (along with the producers) have said that the movie's "great performances" came from the extras (according to Kantor, usually friends and family of the crew) who were required to stay motionless (since they were supposed to be dead) as several live tarantulas crawled all over them.

Concerns over animal cruelty

Another common notion about the film is that it could not be made today due to the increased attention paid by animal rights organizations to film production. Indeed, many tarantulas died during production. This was partly because some of the creatures could not handle the constant changes in temperature and climate during the production process, but more because of the nature of the script. During the scenes where the survivors are trapped in the lodge, many spiders were stomped and crushed because the script called for the characters to kill them (as the spiders were supposed to be so dangerous to humans). Further, many more were crushed inadvertently during the scene where the creatures attack the town; several were stepped on and many others were run over by vehicles. In the scene where Gene Smith drives into town, the squad car's wheels clearly run over several spiders right in front of the camera.

With animal rights organizations now working with most film productions to ensure that animals are not harmed, a movie such as Kingdom of the Spiders would have to be made differently. During production of the similarly themed 1990 horror comedy Arachnophobia, for example, when the script called for a spider to be killed on-screen, the crew would substitute a fake rubber spider model or the carcass of a spider that had died of natural causes. Another method would be to use CGI models.

Sequel

Rumors have occasionally surfaced that a sequel to Kingdom of the Spiders was in production, however no such film has yet been made. Shatner told Fangoria in 1998 that he was working with Cannon Films in the late 1980s to produce a sequel, titled simply Kingdom of the Spiders 2. The actor claimed that he supplied the film's premise, which would have featured a man being tortured by his enemies, preying upon his intense fear of spiders, to get him to reveal a secret. Cannon went so far as to take out a full-page ad in Variety magazine announcing that Shatner would direct and star in the film, however the studio went bankrupt before production could begin.

In 2003, the website for Port Hollywood, a film production company run by Kantor and Howard James Reekie, posted a brief synopsis of the plot of another proposed sequel, to be titled Kingdom of the Spiders II, suggesting that the villainous spiders would this time be driven to attack humans due to secret government experiments involving extremely low frequency (or ELF). The synopsis also details Native American imagery that would factor into the plot.

Background

• At the time of filming, Shatner was married to Marcy Lafferty, the woman who plays his sister-in-law in the movie. The couple have since divorced. Altovise Davis, who plays Birch Colby, was the wife of Sammy Davis, Jr.
• Woody Strode, who plays Walter Colby, was probably best known to film audiences for his role in the Lee Marvin/Burt Lancaster western film The Professionals. Sports historians know Strode as one of the first two African-American football players to break the National Football League's color barrier in the 1940s, when he joined the Los Angeles Rams.
• The film was nominated for the Best Horror Film award by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, but lost to The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, which starred a young Jodie Foster. At the awards ceremony (which was broadcast in TV syndication), Shatner performed one of his noted spoken-word versions of a pop song, in this case Elton John's "Rocket Man". Footage of this performance was featured in the Comedy Central Roast of Shatner.
• Two people involved in the film's production went on to win Oscars. Ve Neill, a makeup artist on the movie, won shared Oscars for her work on Mrs. Doubtfire and Ed Wood. Steven Zaillian, a co-editor on the film, won for his screenwriting of the Steven Spielberg film Schindler's List.
• Kantor hinted in his Fangoria interview that Arachnophobia, which Spielberg produced, bears several similarities to Kingdom of the Spiders. "I thought it was a copy", Kantor stated, "but you don't go and sue Spielberg!"
• According to Cardos, several actresses were considered for the role of Diane Ashley but were rejected when they showed apprehension towards handling live tarantulas. (Cardos kept two of the hairy spiders in an aquarium on his desk while meeting with actresses to gauge their reaction). Ironically, two such actresses, Barbara Hale and Donna Mills, appeared in other "killer spider" pictures: Hale in The Giant Spider Invasion and Mills in the made-for-TV Curse of the Black Widow, though in neither of these films did the aforementioned actresses work as closely with the spiders as they would have in Kingdom of the Spiders.

In popular culture

• The film is mentioned on an episode of the animated sitcom The Critic. In the season 2 episode "From Chunk to Hunk", Jay Sherman reviews a new action movie starring Jean Paul LePope (a thinly-veiled parody of Jean Claude Van Damme). Sherman remarks, "Jean Paul LePope is the worst actor I've ever seen... and I've seen all of William Shatner's movies, even Kingdom of the Spiders!"
• In the Warren Zevon Song "Life'll Kill Ya," Zevon says "its the Kingdom of the Spiders" in the opening verse referring to the movie.

Release

Shout! Factory released Kingdom of The Spiders: Special Edition on DVD in early 2010.

External links

• Kingdom of the Spiders at IMDb
• Kingdom of the Spiders at AllMovie
• Behind-the-scenes production photos Collection of crew member Stephen Lodge.