I watched this film on DVD because I enjoy seeing William Shatner's films. Other than his Star Trek films, Shatner's career in movies is bizarre--with some fine performances (such as in INCUBUS and THE TENTH LEVEL) and some over-the-top awful performances as well (such as in WHITE COMANCHE and my favorite of his bad films, IMPULSE). I like to watch and see just what sort of Shatner I'll see--for good or for bad. Well, despite the cheesy title and theme of KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS, this isn't a bad performance for the Shat. This is NOT saying that it's a particularly good film--but his performance and character were not the reason the film didn't win an Oscar!! While Shatner's acting is just fine, it is odd, however, to see him wearing a cowboy hat and living in a town surrounded by desert scrub! He just doesn't seem like the sort of fella to be living in Arizona.
The most annoying things about the film are not the spiders but a character named Diane Ashley. She is like a walking cliché but a very, very inconsistent and stupid cliché. Like so many of the heroines of the 70s and 80s, this one is full of spunk...and I hate spunk (to quote Lou Grant). She is smart, tough, cool and incredibly nasty towards men---and living up to the stupid stereotype that any woman who is successful MUST be a complete and total....well, you know what I'm trying to say but can't say here on IMDb! This is a very annoying character and what makes her worse is that after spending so much time being just plain nasty towards Shatner, she all of the sudden falls completely under his spell! In other words, one minute she's like ice and the next she's practically massaging his tonsils with her tongue!! This must have set feminism back at least a decade and made me laugh since she was nothing but a string of clichés all pieced together to make up her character.
As for the film itself, the story is about a whole lotta nasty tarantulas that somehow become bloodthirsty killers--which is weird, since tarantulas are basically big but harmless. Shatner is a vet who investigates the deaths of some livestock due to the spiders and Tiffany Bolling plays Ashley--an entomologist with a split personality! Somehow the spiders have begun to swarm (tarantulas are NOT sociable in real life and are loners) and their natural venom is now five times stronger than normal--making them even more dangerous than bunnies (NIGHT OF THE LEPUS) or ants (EMPIRE OF THE ANTS) or frogs (FROGS!)!!
While this isn't a completely terrible film, because it is a bit silly and there are countless similar films (many more than are listed above), it's quite unnecessary for anyone other than devoted Shatner fans to watch the film. It's not quite campy enough to recommend it nor is it interesting enough to set it apart from the crowd. However, you might laugh at a few of the scenes, such as the crop duster incident as well as the scene where the lady shoots the spider off her hand! My favorite, though was the entire last 15 minutes of the film, where it all became a giant insane free-for-all--like the end of ANIMAL HOUSE. No one even thought to just get in their cars and leave town, but chose instead to run about screaming as the smart spiders killed them off one-by-one. Overall, a silly trifle that obviously didn't seriously harm Shatner's career...though you never have heard about Tiffany Bolling since this film, have you?!
By the way, an awful lot of tarantulas are stomped on and smooshed in the movie. That seems pretty sad and a waste. Where is the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Arachnids when you need them?!
The most annoying things about the film are not the spiders but a character named Diane Ashley. She is like a walking cliché but a very, very inconsistent and stupid cliché. Like so many of the heroines of the 70s and 80s, this one is full of spunk...and I hate spunk (to quote Lou Grant). She is smart, tough, cool and incredibly nasty towards men---and living up to the stupid stereotype that any woman who is successful MUST be a complete and total....well, you know what I'm trying to say but can't say here on IMDb! This is a very annoying character and what makes her worse is that after spending so much time being just plain nasty towards Shatner, she all of the sudden falls completely under his spell! In other words, one minute she's like ice and the next she's practically massaging his tonsils with her tongue!! This must have set feminism back at least a decade and made me laugh since she was nothing but a string of clichés all pieced together to make up her character.
As for the film itself, the story is about a whole lotta nasty tarantulas that somehow become bloodthirsty killers--which is weird, since tarantulas are basically big but harmless. Shatner is a vet who investigates the deaths of some livestock due to the spiders and Tiffany Bolling plays Ashley--an entomologist with a split personality! Somehow the spiders have begun to swarm (tarantulas are NOT sociable in real life and are loners) and their natural venom is now five times stronger than normal--making them even more dangerous than bunnies (NIGHT OF THE LEPUS) or ants (EMPIRE OF THE ANTS) or frogs (FROGS!)!!
While this isn't a completely terrible film, because it is a bit silly and there are countless similar films (many more than are listed above), it's quite unnecessary for anyone other than devoted Shatner fans to watch the film. It's not quite campy enough to recommend it nor is it interesting enough to set it apart from the crowd. However, you might laugh at a few of the scenes, such as the crop duster incident as well as the scene where the lady shoots the spider off her hand! My favorite, though was the entire last 15 minutes of the film, where it all became a giant insane free-for-all--like the end of ANIMAL HOUSE. No one even thought to just get in their cars and leave town, but chose instead to run about screaming as the smart spiders killed them off one-by-one. Overall, a silly trifle that obviously didn't seriously harm Shatner's career...though you never have heard about Tiffany Bolling since this film, have you?!
By the way, an awful lot of tarantulas are stomped on and smooshed in the movie. That seems pretty sad and a waste. Where is the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Arachnids when you need them?!