Kingdom of the Spiders!!!

Updated on January 18, 2010 By Ken Begg 8 Comments

I don’t often do a ‘must buy’ DVD recommendation, but it’s hard to ignore the glowing reviews of the new, 2-disk special edition of the William Shatner classic Kingdom of the Spiders. Plus the film is pretty much everything we love about B-movies.  Aside from an enhanced anamorphic presentation, the set offers a commentary, and also a new interview with Shatner as he reminisces about the film.  Again, a must buy, or at the very least, a must rent.

The TV spotlight this week goes to the classic Dirty Harry knock-off Hunter, the first season of which hits shelves tomorrow.

Is that not schlocky enough for you? How about the first season of the classic Lorenzo Lamas show Renegade? Or how about the Johnny Depp classic 21 Jump Street Season 1?

Even more exciting, the fourth and (sadly) final season of the locked room / impossible crime Britshow Jonathon Creek (which I blogged about last month) is out.

Other TV this week includes Dallas Season 12 (!!!); Damages S2; Defying Gravity S1; Law & Order S7; Thirtysomething S2; Weeds S5.

On movies this week:

Gamer is one of several recent sci-fi films involving characters projecting themselves into other bodies, although only one has done particularly well.

Whiteout was a thriller adapted from a comic book, but reviews were pretty lame.

Smokin’ Aces 2 is a DTV sequel to the rather silly way over the top action flick of several years ago.

Pandorum was a horror flick starring Dennis Quaid.

Inalienable is a monster flick.

Twilight Vamps is–how original–a DTV sexy vampire movie. If that doesn’t turn your crank, also out this week is Bikini Frankenstein. (!!)

My friend Jeff will be excited to hear about Jethro Tull: Living with the Past, and also Jethro Tull: Classic Artists.

Steven Seagal has a new movie out; this one is called The Keeper.

The Nunsploitation Collection: Three examples of ’70s Eurotrash cinema, including Images in a Convent, The Nun of Monza and Nuns of Saint Archangel. Oddly, the set consists of three movies, but all the advance materials claim it is a four-disc set. Presumably the fourth disc contains the documentary “Totally Uncut: The Erotic Films of Joe D’Amato.”

Red Cartoons: Animated Films from East Germany is a collection of 16 animated shorts from the Communist DEFA Studios. A fit companion piece (or replacement, if you’re not that hardcore) for the magisterial four disc Animated Soviet Propaganda set.

Pin It



Related Posts

  • I swear to you, I saw Shatner on Pat Sajak’s late-80s CBS talk show claiming he was in talks to do KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS 2, which I don’t doubt was true. How kickass it would have been if he had made it.

  • Per Wikipedia: “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.

    More recently, the website for Port Hollywood, a film production company run by Kantor and Howard James Reekie, has 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.”

  • Gristle McThornbody

    “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.”

    If they can work an immoral corporation in there, then they’ll score a Convenient Cliched Cause hat trick.

  • professorKettlewell

    Maybe Billy Jack and Forrest Taft could make cameo appearences….

  • The Rev. D.D.

    I’d definitely pay to see Billy Jack go BEEEERRRRRR-ZERK on some spiders and/or the evil gummint sp00ks who caused the problem in the first place.

    Although I’m not sure he’d wanna remove his boots for the former…

  • roger h

    my only memory of the film beside Shatner and the spiders was the song “Pretty (purty) Verdi Valley” I recall a Hoyt Axton feel to it.

  • fish eye no miko

    Fun fact: This movie was filmed in Northern Arizona, where my family was living at the time, and my brother was an extra in one of the crowd scenes (the scene where people crowd around the cop car). I haven’t seen the movie in ages, so I’m not sure if I could pick him out.

    roger h said “my only memory of the film beside Shatner and the spiders was the song ‘Pretty (purty) Verdi Valley’ I recall a Hoyt Axton feel to it.”

    Pardon the nitpick, but it’s “Verde Valley”, which is the area in which the movie was filmed. FYI, “verde” is Spanish for “green”.

  • roger h

    @fish eye no miko: sorry, did not expect a native. Just been driving through Northern Nevada which has a “Verdi” (which also still translates to green[s] but, in Italian).

    The song was rather weak no matter how spelled.