Rating: 
Summary: SICkening to watch. Waste of some great actors.
Review: Bill Shatner likes to joke about this movie and how bad it was, but in 1977, he was still a working actor and had to take offers for work whenever he could. Thank god, the Star Trek Movies came along when they did. Anyway this is a low budget film and it has second rate everything in it. Bad script, both fake and real spiders used in various scenes, and a very predictable ending. Most of the actors were in other better movies, why did they appear in this? Who knows? Anyway only three years after this movie was made, Bill Shatner returned to the starship Enterprise, and the real winners were both him and Star Trek fans.
Rating: 
Summary: William Shatner vs. thousands of evil spiders?!! I'm sold!!
Review: "I've never seen anything like it!" -That must be the most said line in the film! To be honest I've never seen anything like it either, well maybe a little like it. Right before Director John "Bud" Carlos teamed with Tobe Hooper for "The Dark" (1979) he blessed the cheezy b horror film genre with this little number from 1977. The story, penned by the writer who gave us "Village of the Giants" (1965) & "Evil Knievel" (1971) as well as the co-writer of a western starring Kenny Rogers!, concerns a small desert farm town being overrun by extremely hungry and ill-tempered tarantulas. William Shatner leads the cast as Rack Hansen, the town vet with a cowboy hat. Woody Strode (Draba from Spartacus) plays local farmer Walter Colby who begins losing his livestock to the horrible poisonous spiders! This one has many alluring elements: Cheese, people being attacked by tarantulas and totally flipping out, country music, thousands of real tarantulas, webs, Shatner not only talking like a cowboy, but also reacting to vicious man-eating spiders like only he could! Actually, he's not as over the top as Captain Kirk, but like Kirk, Rack manages to put moves on a female amidst all the terror! Definitely recommended for fans of Shatner and of "the town is being taken over by..." movies.
The 2002 Goodtimes DVD is impressive for this film. I rented this on VHS at a video store that doesn't exist anymore and no one else has it. Imagine my surprise when I saw it on DVD! The film is presented in a Standard screen version only with chapter selection, not to mention great keep case art - Shatner kneeling over a woman covered in spiders! The DVD is inexpensive as Goodtimes DVDs are and if you like it or even think you will, I can recommend it for purchase. The image transfer isn't perfect (there's the odd jump that's in the orginal film most likely), but face it, its not getting any better than this. We're lucky to have it on digital at all! Check out that last shot when Shatner prys the boards off the window and looks out onto the town! Also recommended: Devil's Rain (1975) - Shatner vs. cloaked devil worshipper Ernest Borgnine! Also a DVD cheapie. Film debut of John Travolta as Danny, the eyeless & mute devil worshipper! Tom Skerrit and Eddie Albert decide to join the fight against evil as well! How can you miss this one Other "they're taking over..." films:
Frogs (1972) - Oh no! the frogs don't like us!, Squirm (1976) - Oh wow! It's worms!, Swarm (1978) - Oh no! I've been stung by killer bees!, Them (1954) - Oh no! those are very large ants Grizzly (1976) - Oh dear lord!, that is one giant bear!
Attack of the killer tomatoes! (1978) - Oh my! fresh veggies!
Rating:
Summary: William Shatner vs. thousands of evil spiders?!! I'm sold!!
Review: "I've never seen anything like it!" -That must be the most said line in the film! To be honest I've never seen anything like it either, well maybe a little like it. Right before Director John "Bud" Carlos teamed with Tobe Hooper for "The Dark" (1979) he blessed the cheezy b horror film genre with this little number from 1977. The story, penned by the writer who gave us "Village of the Giants" (1965) & "Evil Knievel" (1971) as well as the co-writer of a western starring Kenny Rogers!, concerns a small desert farm town being overrun by extremely hungry and ill-tempered tarantulas. William Shatner leads the cast as Rack Hansen, the town vet with a cowboy hat. Woody Strode (Draba from Spartacus) plays local farmer Walter Colby who begins losing his livestock to the horrible poisonous spiders! This one has many alluring elements: Cheese, people being attacked by tarantulas and totally flipping out, country music, thousands of real tarantulas, webs, Shatner not only talking like a cowboy, but also reacting to vicious man-eating spiders like only he could! Actually, he's not as over the top as Captain Kirk, but like Kirk, Rack manages to put moves on a female amidst all the terror! Definitely recommended for fans of Shatner and of "the town is being taken over by..." movies.
The 2002 Goodtimes DVD is impressive for this film. I rented this on VHS at a video store that doesn't exist anymore and no one else has it. Imagine my surprise when I saw it on DVD! The film is presented in a Standard screen version only with chapter selection, not to mention great keep case art - Shatner kneeling over a woman covered in spiders! The DVD is inexpensive as Goodtimes DVDs are and if you like it or even think you will, I can recommend it for purchase. The image transfer isn't perfect (there's the odd jump that's in the orginal film most likely), but face it, its not getting any better than this. We're lucky to have it on digital at all! Check out that last shot when Shatner prys the boards off the window and looks out onto the town! Also recommended: Devil's Rain (1975) - Shatner vs. cloaked devil worshipper Ernest Borgnine! Also a DVD cheapie. Film debut of John Travolta as Danny, the eyeless & mute devil worshipper! Tom Skerrit and Eddie Albert decide to join the fight against evil as well! How can you miss this one Other "they're taking over..." films:
Frogs (1972) - Oh no! the frogs don't like us!, Squirm (1976) - Oh wow! It's worms!, Swarm (1978) - Oh no! I've been stung by killer bees!, Them (1954) - Oh no! those are very large ants Grizzly (1976) - Oh dear lord!, that is one giant bear!
Attack of the killer tomatoes! (1978) - Oh my! fresh veggies!
Rating: 
Summary: Great Cult Entertainment
Review: A good B-movie/cult film always has certain elements that make it enjoyable. Kingdom of the Spiders even has a great B-movie title.Harkening back to the time when films like this were made at a fantastic rate, KOS is the cream of the crop. An actually quite intelligent movie that has good special effects for its time, this is very entertaining movie that doesn't cop out during its entire running time. While William Shatner is known for giving outrageous and campy performances, e.g. T.J. Hooker, The Wrath of Khan (Khan! KHAN!!!), he gives the ultimate B-movie performance. The supporting cast is less capable, but being the name, Shatner entertains like he is supposed to. The spiders are the real draw though, and they're actually quite well done, but nothing like the realistic spiders in a movie from today like Eight Legged Freaks. Overall, this is highly entertaining shlock that will be sure to give you enjoyment. Also, the ending is brilliant.
Rating:
Summary: Want some good laughs? Check this movie out!
Review: By no means is this movie good. But, I enjoy watching awful B-movies, and this is one of the best out there. To me, this movie is more of a comedy rather than a sci-fi/horror flick. When you sit down to watch the movie, keep a keen eye out for some of these "highlights"... 1. William Shatner is waaaay more disgusting than any of those spiders. Check him out putting the moves on the women! Horrible! Just watching this guy being a sleazeball jerk is worth the admission alone! 2. Watch for Mr.Johnson's wife (they're the couple with the RV staying at the lodge). I have never seen a human being that looks so weird in my entire life. I wonder if she really is human at all. She looks like a Muppet! 3. That poor guy who just keeps getting shafted by the man upstairs. He loses his prize cow, his dog, his bull, breaks his arm, and dies a horrible death by spiders! Geez, tough breaks huh? 4. I rented the VHS version of the film and from what I saw, there wasn't an ending! There is no resolution to the story. I won't tell you how it ends but is by no means an "ending"! Perhaps it is included with the DVD version... If you're looking for a serious horror flick, look somewhere else. If you're looking for a campy, badly-made B-movie than look no further. I'll definately be buying this movie on DVD and I'll be laughing for many years to come. By the way, I happen to live in the area in which this movie was filmed (Sedona and Camp Verde, Arizona) and there are tarantulas here, but there has never been a case of thousands and thousands of venemous spider taking over a small town. At least not yet.....
Rating:
Summary: Rampaging tarantulas make meal of Arizona residents.
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Beam me up, Scotty.
Review: First off, I haven't truly been scared by a movie since I was 3, and that was Terminator 2. So take this review with a grain of salt. SPOILER ALERT! IF YOU ARE SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING WATCHING THIS, *DON'T* SKIP AHEAD! I'm sorry, but I simply cannot comprehend why anyone would call this a horror film. It's a comedy, through and through. True, Shatner isn't playing Kirk, but it's close enough, and a name like Rack Hansen doesn't help. (More like Rack Beefcake. Every time I think women really want a nice, family man, someone like this shows up, and the girls start fawning. But I digress.) The plot is ridiculous, to say the least. The besieged villagers only start stomping on the critters in the *last five minutes*, for crying out loud. One moron shoots her own hand off to kill a spider on it, instead of thwacking the back of her hand (and consequently, the spider) against the dresser. Brain scientists need not apply. And how could I possibly forget the scene where Kirk- er... Rack (snicker) has to cross a field of spiders. He does, by running across the field the way Speed Racer would have if he were on cocaine. (Step, stop. Step, stop. Step, wobble, stop. Painful face.) For that matter, how is Shatner the only person able to survive a bite from one of these spiders?! (Let alone 35!) If the American public is really as mind-bogglingly stupid as these inbred idiot characters, an Army of Killer SMEGGING TOMATOES would have no trouble... Oh wait, they made that movie too, didn't they.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting idea for ending
Review: First off, let me say that, yeah there are a few problems with this movie. However I love it. Its extremly creepy, Probably the creepiest of the spider vs. human movies i have seen. The thing that makes it even more creepy is the ending that i think the director intended. Now i am about to sound crazy to some people, or i might be stating the obvious, but i truly think that the "guy" speaking on the radio in the end, is a spider. Think of it, he is very calm, and plays a song (forgiving the country style) that welcomes the audience to the "Kingdom of the Spiders" with a song titled "A Great Place to Live In." To me, it all fits, and to me it adds a huge demention of creepiness to it...Thank you for your time, just some food for thought.
Rating:
Summary: More Silliness than Scariness
Review: For a cheesy late 70s Jaws rip-off, Kingdom of the Spiders ain't a half-bad bit o' entertainment. For those hoping to see William Shatner do his over-the-top schtick that passed for acting on old-school Star Trek,.you'll be in for a bit of a disappointment. His performance here as 'Rack' the livestock vet / heroic protagonist is surprisingly laid-back, and lacks the halting, staccato dialogue that made him famous on that short-lived space show from almost a decade earlier. But he does manage to bag the babe, and never fails to flaunt his machismo at every opportunity. Just like you-know-who... Kingdom of the Spiders' cheesiness manifests itself primarily in the menacing 'tarantula POV' shots as the camera crawls along the ground towards whatever prey is in its sights. Also laughable are some of the spiders' victims, who give out some of the hokiest screams of fear imaginable as the pesky arachnids do 'em in! Imagine he Monty Python guys doing one of their sketches where they're in drag, and speaking in their highest-pitched voices, and you'll have a pretty good idea of what the cacophonies of fear these doomed souls belt out sound like. Especially silly was the death of the cropduster pilot, who escapes his hideous death-by-venom by crashing his plane through the garage of a filling station, resulting in him dying much more swiftly and humanely. Also thrown in is the obligatory scene of the local sheriff being overwhelmed by the terrorized townsfolk as they futilely run in terror from the inexorable advance of the eight-legged menaces. Also added is the tried-and-true 'child-in-peril' scene-- which plays out here on several occasions with Rack's niece-- that's sure to drive home to the viewer just how dire the situation is. And let's not forget our heroic protagonist surviving an arachnid attack near the end to give the viewer a false sense of security about how things are gonna end. Speakin' of the ending: let's just say Bill's chances of surviving a second assault don't look all that promising... 'Late
Rating:
Summary: Shatner camp at it's best!
Review: Gotta love Captain Kirk in Arizona! Terrific stuff. If only "Night of the Lepus" was available to complete my collection!
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