Kingdom of the Spiders

--Reviewed by Lindy Loo

Plotline: Livestock starts turning up dead in a small town, with no indication of what's killing them. After some scientific investigations, it's concluded that spider venom is the cause of their deaths. As Shatner and his goons look further into the puzzling source, they stumble across hundreds of enormous spider-hills. Shortly after, the spiders begin to attack humans. Shatner must save them all.

Scariness factor: *snark*

Gross-Out Factor: You DO get to see a hand blown off with a gun which was pretty sweet. But other than that, fairly low-key.

Complaints: Even campy movies can be bad. In this case, Kingdom of the Spiders was a bit too slow for its own good. Even if the point of watching the movie is to make fun of it, you still want it to move quickly. This film did not. Also a bit disconcerting about this movie was the fact that I think it may have been filmed before animal-protection laws, so I think a lot of the spiders (which appeared to be tarantulas) were actually getting smashed. All of us watching it were a bit appalled by that fact.

High Points: It had William Shatner as the lead, so I of course expected some juicy campy goodness. And Shatner thankfully lived up to his name, swaggering around the screen and making passes at lady doctors. The movie also had lots of pretty damn funny moments, from a woman shooting off her hand to get a spider off her, to Shatner being attacked by hundreds of spiders. Good stuff. It also was COMPLETELY devoid of any sort of logic, which was enjoyable as well. And Shatner's a total slut. But again: unfortunately it was kind of slow-moving, otherwise this would've been another gem.



Overall: If you like to make fun of Shatner, definitely check it out. Otherwise, you could take it or leave it.

Grade: C (camp)