Kingdom of The Spiders
Captain's Log: These...SPIDERS! Are Out of Control!
"Rack" Hansen-Played by William Shatner. A veterinarian in some small hick town in Arizona. And he's being played by Shatner, so you know he's a ladies man. Oh yeah...
Diane Ashley-Smarty pants scientist chick who came to this hick town from some big University to investigate these spiders.
Walter & Birch Colby-Farmer and his wife who's cattle is being slaughtered by some Taranculas.
Terry & Linda-Rack's Sister-In-Law & Niece. Linda doesn't wear any pants throughout this entire movie. It's kinda disturbing.
Gene Smith-The Sheriff. Is/Was/ banging Emma.
Emma Washburn-Owns a hotel/cabin place in town. By today's standards she'd appear to be a lesbian. But is hung up on Gene. Ok, maybe she is a lesbian.
Mayor Connors-Typical Mayor in your small town, worries the spiders are gonna ruin his chance to bring in some money to the town and basically says "Screw the townspeople."
Vernon & Betty Johnson-Tourists visiting the town for the fair that's going on. They're pretty much what you'd expect tourists to look like.
The Spiders-Creepy, crawly, hairy things that are munching on cattle, dogs, and then humans when DDT wipes out their food supply. I sense a message somewhere here.
Ahh, William Shatner. This guy is beloved to many people alike. Well, ok, not all people, just mainly Trekkies. But once "Star Trek" ended in 1969, he, along with his other cast mates, scrambled to find some work in other fields, mainly movies. No doubt some of those movies will appear here, (For example "Night of The Lepus" starring DeForest "Bones" Kelly), but let us start with William Shatner fighting off some spiders, shall we?

During the opening credits we get a rather upbeat country song about the city of Verde Valley, which coincidentally, the movie takes place in. Then we go down to The Colby's farm as Walter is putting a calf out to pasture. He gives us some exposition by stating that this is a prized calf and it's gonna get them a lot of money. So that means the calf must die.

We see some Point of View shots coming from the grass attacking the cow, which makes it seem like the camera crew is going after the cow. Maybe they like their hamburgers REALLY fresh.

It's not too long that we meet Rack, who is on a horse getting ready to wrangle up a young bull or something. Before you crazy ass PETA people write to me, Rack is a vet who just roped the bull to give it a shot of something. Don't spill red paint on me, you wackos. Anyway, Rack is with Terry, who was married to Rack's brother John. But John died somehow. We find out later, and since it's not that important I'll just tell you know. He died in 'Nam, man. Imagine all the people living like there's no today.
So this movie is definitely up there as one of my favorite B-Movies. I just love everything about it. I just wish there weren't these slow spots here and there, otherwise it'd be the perfect B-Movie. And out of all the "creatures attacking" movies, the spiders attacking ones are usually the best. Because there's a whole group of people who are just afraid of spiders. Now ants? Who's afraid of ants? And Virgina Woolf? Who's afraid of Virgina Woolf?
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Rack gets a call from his tri-corder...er...pager thingy that I didn't know exist in 1977 (But what do I know?) saying to go down to his office. Rack heads there and finds Walter with his prized calf, looking pretty sick. I couldn't help but notice that while Rack was checking the calf out, he wasn't wearing gloves. I'm willing to bet if what happens later in this movie didn't happen, he would've been shut down by the Health Department.

Rack checks the calf out and finds that it died by some weird ass bites. He takes some samples and sends them to someplace. Walter, for some reason, freaks out about being quarantined, even though no one said such a thing. Rack assures him no one's being quarantined and just wait until the lab results come back.

Well, the lab results decided to come to Rack. While Rack is checking his oil at a gas station, Diane pulls up and thinks Rack is the dumb hick that works there. Kinda pissed about this, Rack sends her to the mens washroom. No, I don't know why, and no it's not explained.

There's a rather pointless scene at Gene's office, where even the Mayor shows up and starts screaming about quarantining the entire town because there's gonna be a county fair there in a few days and it's gonna bring the entire town money and all this crap. Diane shows up looking for Rack and is quite amused that Rack is the guy from the gas station who sent her to the mens room for no reason.

Diane has the lab results and states that the calf died from spider venom. Rack says that's bullshit but Diane has the facts, man!! Then Rack tries to play it all cool and ask her about dinner. She blows him off and goes back to her cabin, which she rented from Emma.

At Emma's, Diane runs into The Johnson's, and gets hit on by wormy Vernon, in front of his, um..."looker" of a wife Betty no less. Diane calls it a night, goes into her room, and gets naked. Sadly, we don't see this (Well, we kinda do), but we do see a spider crawling along in the room. Diane spots it and you can tell the chick playing Diane was nervous holding a spider cause her hand was shaking this entire scene. So much for being a big "spider expert".
The next day, Rack and Diane are at The Colby's checking out their farm, when Walter tells them about this giant ass spider hill. They check it out and Diane says this is weird. Walter wants to destroy it, but Rack stops him. Diane grabs one and decides to study it. Then Rack does something smooth. He says he's gonna go "see his girl" out loud, then grabs Diane and says "You wanna get dinner with me tonight?" Diane again shoots him down. Yeah, cause you know, the girl you wanna go out with just loves hearing you talk about going to see your girl.

But it turns out he was talking about Terry and Linda, with Linda being "his girl" (Not in that way, although her lack of pants is disturbing) I guess. Then a weird exchange takes place between Terry and Rack.
Terry: Rack, you're a funny man. You don't want to be with your brother's wife, but you care for her like you were. Isn't that like buying the cow and giving the milk away?
Rack: You don't quit pestering me, one of these mornings I'm gonna show up and start milking that cow.
Terry: Well, make sure your hands are warm.

Then Shatner, for some strange reason, thought it was appropriate to raise his hands up like claws and look menacing. Yep, Shatner is a great actor. No doubt about it.
While driving back, Rack runs into Diane on the road. He pretty much forces her to have dinner with him by grabbing her, putting her in her car, and then driving off in her car. Then a boring and pointless scene at dinner where Rack explains his stupid nickname. It has to do with him always losing while playing pool with his brother, who's now dead in case you forgot, and the brother always saying "Rack' em". Boy, it was a good thing they didn't always play "Candy Land" or something, that'd be an even more stupid nick name.

It's about this time in the movie when people who are watching this shouts out "Well, when are the damn spiders gonna attack someone?!" We're getting there, don't worry. First, Diane and Rack check out the spider they got from the giant spider hill and realize that the DDT is killing off their natural food source, so they have to go eat cattle, dogs, and it'll only be a matter of time humans.

Rack and Diane rush off to The Colby's to burn the hill, where Colby himself is getting ready to do the same thing. They burn it and the spiders go up in flames and the movie ends...

NOT! HA! Got ya, didn't I? Really, the spiders, guess sensing this was gonna happen sooner or later, built a back door to this hill and start moving out. During this, a bull gets Mad Cow's disease and runs out, covered in spiders. This breaks Colby's arm. I don't know why I just told you that, it really wasn't important. Pretend that last sentence didn't exist. Thank you.

The next day, Colby is leaving his house, with them both dressed in black clothes like they came from the bull's funeral or something, and while driving along on a bridge that looks like one of those bridges that's used in a plot point where "it's the only bridge in or out of town" and it gets destroyed in a matter of minutes, some spiders attack Walter in his truck, causing him to crash and die.
Rack takes Diane to Terry and Linda's house, which is awkward cause Terry has a thing for Rack, or something. It isn't totally explained, but in any event, Diane and Rack take Linda hiking through some mountains. Linda, still not wearing any pants, is playing when a spider is about to attack! But she throws dirt on it and goes on her merry way.

On the way back from this outing, they spot Gene trying to get Colby's truck out of the ditch it's in. They find Colby all cocooned up. They suspect Wilfred Brimley at this point.

Gene takes it upon himself to tell Birch about it and she TOO assumes he's there to quarantine the place! Jeez, why is everybody so hung up on this quarantine business. Then she oddly calls her husband Colby, which is her last name also, so that just seemed odd.

The Mayor, being a mayor and all, decides to spray the area with DDT, which according to Diane can only make it stronger. The Mayor ignores her and Rack and tells this guy who can fly do it. So he does and while doing it, some spiders come out of literally nowhere and attack him. This causes him to crash into the gas station. Ohh! Ahh!!
NOW things get serious when spiders are just coming from everywhere and attacking. Gene decides to check in on Birch, who's off in her house shooting at spiders. This is what a widow does with her time, huh? Rack decides to check up on Linda and Terry. Linda is on a swing (yep, still no pants) and Terry is making lunch. Terry notices that Linda is cornered on the swing by the spiders and seriously screams out, "MY BABY!" I know people yell weird things when they're in a panic, but usually it's something along the lines of "LINDA!" or "NO!!!" or "SALAD BAR!" or "PANCAKES!", not "MY BABY" like it's a 1920's silent film or something.
Anyway, Rack shows up, but he's too late cause Terry gets attacked by the spiders and dies. Linda is ok though and they take her and head off to Emma's. There, the Johnson family had a run in with the spiders but sadly they made it. Gene decides to go into town to check things out and get help. And town is in pretty bad shape. Spiders are just attacking people left and right, and wrapping them up in cocoons. Gene himself doesn't make it when a car crashes into a water tower, making it crash into him...baby. And with that, the rest of the movie takes place at Emma's.

Rack, having seen one too many zombie films, decides to board up the windows and doors when they all just suddenly descend onto the hotel. But the spiders are crafty creatures and they decide to come in through the air vents and the fire place. This movie gets better when Spiders fall on Betty and she's rolling around screaming to (in high pitch voice) GET THEM OFF!! GET THEM OFF!!! GET THEM OFF!! Ahh...classic. Soon, the spiders get in the fuse box and blow it out. Then we get five heart pounding minutes of Shatner...changing...THE fuse! Once he does that, he goes into Pure Ultra Shatner Mode when spiders just jump on him all at once.
Thankfully, Diane knows how to cure spider venom and does so. Then we just jump to the next day, bright and early. Brick, feeling better, decides to check out the situation outside to see if the spiders left yet. And what he finds shocks him so much a priest watching this would go into cardiac arrest. Brick says, "GOD DAMN! Jesus CHRIST! Holy shit! God DAMN!" over and over again. We find what he's using the Lord's name in vain for as we see the entire town is covered in a giant web. Or rather, a painting of a giant web. This brings this classic to a close.
I feel like buying a Gateway computer for some reason.
William Shatner in Bullspotting.
This spider trains for the 100 meter dash.
Man, I need to stop clicking on "Bored Housewives From Nebraska.com".
"I should get this wart checked out."
American Gothic 2
"I'm not sure, but this may be where the spiders are coming from."
"For the love of god, Shatner is there! Put some pants on!"
Rawr! I'm a pussycat. Rawr!
Artsy.
I'm surprised the spiders didn't chew through this bridge.
Oil....can! Oil....can!
No, you wait until you're in the air before you start dusting!
Next we attack...the grass!! HA-HA!!
Don Vito, NO!!!!
"ICK! These spiders are ruining this teramisu!"
A-HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
DO THE SHANTER!! Doot-Doot-Doot-Doo!
I call this painting "A Town Covered In Webs".