REVIEW: Kingdom of the Spiders

William Shatner. Actor, singer(?) and one-time feature film director. And the man who has become a long-term running gag in my Parody Wrestling Federation "BOB" for his ring-clearing, violence-inducing song numbers. In his "Star Trek" tenure, he took on and defeated countless alien species, while still having time to persue a little intergalatic booty. (Okay, okay, a LOT of booty!) But back on Earth, Big Bill Shatner was fated to meet his nemesis. A small, hairy, eight-legged nemesis. And so, in honour of this films 2003 B-Fest screening, I invite you to join me on a quest to the...

KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS

Really Orange Films, Inc.: Oh, my EYES! That's one of the worst colour schemes I've ever seen, and the film hasn't even started. Dimesion Pictures, Inc. is off my Christmas Card list. It's appropriate, though, as we cut to some...

Really Orange Credits!: Okay, two bright orange screens right off the bat. Hey, 1970's? Up yours! The titles are accompanied by a blast of extra-loud "shock" music, which suddenly does a weird cross-fade into...

Country and Western? Nooooooo!: Twanging guitars and a typically nasal singer lead us through the credits, along with some establishing visuals. In fact, it feels like they're trying to show us every square inch of Arizona. Rock formation, desert, more rock formations, a tree, more sodding rocks. The Arizona Tourist Board must have paid big money for this. I forget what town this was supposedly set in... Somewhere tiny and dull, anyway. Bumfluff, Arizona, largest exporter of dust west of the Pecos. (Note to geography Geeks: I have no idea WHERE the Pecos is, so if that statement was inaccurate, I sincerely don't give a crap.)

John "Bud" Carlos: That's the director of this opus, folks. Personally, I think it's a subtle hint that you'll need a beer to get through the flick. I was all out of suds, but a nice glass of reisling helped me no end. We finally get the flick properly underway as we meet Colby, an Afro-American farmer. (Yes, for once I DID actually note the characters names. Although, I originally thought his name was "Walton", due to some sub-standard audio.)

STAMPEEDE!: That's slightly sarcastic... in fact Colby released one small calf into a field. For a while in the flick, that appears to be his entire herd. Coby and his wife leave the calf to do what comes naturally. (Yep, eat, fart and defecate. I know some guys who must be related to cows.) But, wait... what's this?

Charge! (Jaws music?): Something tiny this way comes! Hilariously, the cow "reacts" to the Evil POV Shot by turning its' head to the left, then the right, then back again, without the "Flight" response crossing its tiny bovine brain at any stage. As the camera makes a final death-rush, practically up the poor critters nose, we cut to the...

Rodeo... OF THE SPIDERS!: You know, I promised myself I wouldn't use the "...OF THE SPIDERS" joke. More than five times, anyway. Anyway, we get to see William Shatner on a horse, (There's a shocker, huh?) doing a little ropin', ridin' and wranglin'. At least, I assume he's wranglin'. I've never wrangled, so I have no idea what it looks like. Anyway, Big Bill ropes himself a calf and vaccinates it as an attractive woman watches on. Some things never change, huh? We learn his charcters name at ths stage.

"Rack"?: Sorry, "Rack"? As in "My, Nurse Chapel has a nice..."? Rack is pretty pleased with his calf-roping skills, but gets taunted by the young lady. (Who calls him "adequate". Repeatedly.) This leads to a little...

Cowboy Foreplay!: You see, who needs chat-up lines when you can simply rope and hog-tie your chosen date? However, things quickly go sour after a major Freudian slip from the woman.

"John"?: Oops, nothing like calling your brother-in-law by your dead husbands name to cool the mood. Racks gets instantly moody and tense until he gets a call on his walkie-talkie. (Gotta love those pre-cellphone days.) The Expositionary RT lets us know he's "Dr Hanson". I mis-heard the name at first, and let me tell you, you get all sorts of mental images when you think the character is called "Rack Johnson". Rack hustles his buns over to Colbys place, where his prize calf is drooling like a 14-year-old with his first copy of Playboy. So I'm guessing he's a vetrenarian, then. (Hooray for obvious logic!)

C.O.W, D.O.A: Rack does a quick "Dr Kildare" impression, but sadly for the calf, only gets the "Kill" part of it. Yes, the poor animal goes to the Big Grassy Field in the Sky. (I can imagine his reaction. "Damn it, this is the hardest part of my job. Nurse, inform the next of kin and fire up the barbeque!") Colbys' reaction of "That's two years breeding down the drain" gave me a few unsavoury images. Although I'm sure he was breeding the cows, not breeding WITH the... well, you get the picture. (And if you don't get the picture, I could probably e-mail it to you.) To allay Colbys' fears that his farm will be placed under quarrentine, Rack rushes some samples off to Flagstaff.

Country & Jazz?: Rack, change the station in your truck, yeah? That's terrible travelling music! Back at the old ranch, Colby takes solace in ice-cream. He and his wife are worried about the "infection" that killed their calf. My notes indicate I was worried about their 70's decor.

Red Hookah?: Wow, that is a REALLY ugly table lamp. Even for the 70's. It kinda looks like you have to inflate it.But back to the plot.... Colby, proving to be the APSCA Man of the Year, puts his dog out before bed. The dog, probably sensing the danger... either that, or because he heard the "Jaws" theme rip-off on the soundtrack... bolts for the hills soon after.

Jug Band Man & the Inbred Greasemonkey: The next day, we find the aforementioned twosome at a service station. The former is Clyde, an aging redneck, the latter a Gomer Pyle clone gas-jockey and mechanic. They banter "comedically" about the cost of a replacement tyre for Clydes clapped-out car. Five hours later, (or so it seemed at the time) Rack drives up. There's some more down-home humour exchanged, and we get a glimpse of...

The Yellow Baron?: Ooh, a daredevil crop-duster pilot in a movie about maruding spiders! Thanks for bonking me with the Foreshadowing Stick, Mr. Director! Now all we need is a carnival for them to disrupt and we're set! Anyhow, after some protracted negotiations, Gomer finally agrees to find an old tyre for Clyde. And in a dusty, cobwebby (bum bum BUM!) storeroom, he discovers a new species... {B]Tyre-rantula!: That was your contractually mandated God-Awful Pun for the review. You may now let fly with the rotten produce... Gomer deals with the arachnid menace in the typical rural manner, resulting in a squidgy mess on his floor. But what's this? Am ominous second spider? (Probably running out shouting the arachnid equivalent of "Harry! NOOOOoooooo!".) We cut from the garage to a car a few miles down the road, being driven by the...

Muppet Band Chick?: Well, that's who she looked like to me, but I've been watching a lot of the Muppet Show recently. God bless the Disney Channel! She is in fact our female lead, and soon to be an unlikely romantic partner for Rack. (Despite her freakishly large... glasses. Ahh, the 70's strike again.) How can I tell that this early? Because of the...

Amusing (?) Meet Cute!: Oh, look, she's mistaking Rack for a gas-jockey! And he's talking in a slow drawl and calling her "ma'am" a lot. And now he's suckered her into using the mens room instead off the ladies. Oh, how precious. *sigh* Before he heads off, Rack gives our still-unsuspecting heroine directions to...

Washburn Lodge (Chh-chh-chh-ha-ha-ha): Good Lord, she's taken a wrong turn and ended up at Camp Crystal Lake! If she goes skinny-dipping, I think she's toast. At the lodge, she meets Emma Washburn, the owner, allowing for some expositionary intros. (Our heroine is Diane Ashly, Scientist. I think, my pen was running out and the name is a little faint.) During the conversation,. Emma makes sure to mention the towns upcoming major event.

COUNTY FAIR!: Well, it's not Mardi Gras or a Carnival, but I think we have our "Mass Attack" location locked in. A named extra, "Fred" wanders past at one stage. Since he had a name, but no dialogue and only a back-shot, I immediately put him on the Designated Victim List. Since we haven't seen any spiders for a while, we cut to...

Sherrif Brewski: Sherrif Gene Smith, to be precise, although he is sinking a couple of cans with Rack. (Who's wearing a truely scary pink shirt... Yeah, you're all man, Rack.) They discuss the mysterious cow-cacking with the towns Mayor. Would it have killed them to give this guy a name? He's only ever referred to as "The Mayor", although in a town this size, I'm pretty sure people might be a little less formal than that. I eventually named him Mayor Amity, due to his "You can't close the beaches... uh, stop the Fair, I mean." appoach to the situation. In fact, that turns out to be pretty much his only character trait. I kept waiting for the grizzled spider hunter character with the tourtured past to arrive, but no dice.

Meet Cute, part 2: Diane arrives soon after, allowing Rack to smirk at her as only Shatner can do. There's some brief flirting from Rack which results in Diane dismissing his advances in no uncertain style. Ahh, the course of badly-scripted love never did run smooth. Let's move along to where a little scientific jiggery-pokery brings Diane to a diagnosis. It seems that the calf died from a...

Massive Dose of Venom... OF THE SPIDERS!: Yes, I'm sure you're as shocked as I am. Of course, my shock was at Dianes' powder-blue neckscarf she wears for the first third of the film. (Looked like she'd stolen a cravat from Fed in Scooby-Doo.) But, because we haven't seen a spider in a while, we...

Meet the Johnsons!: Who are an extremely annoying couple from Colorado. They're staying at the Lodge too, leading to a lengthy discussion of Mr. Johnsons' chemical toilet business. Say, there WERE some spiders in this film somewhere, right? Diane eventually escapes Chemical Johnson and his nails-down-the-blackboard wife and gets ready for bed. And we get to see pretty much every second of it.

AND??!!: Look, I know a lot of women bnrush their hair before bed. Did we actually have to see every stroke? Do something! Oh, thank God she finally taken of the neckerchief... And she's stripping... wait, camerman, why are we panning away? Stop it! All that padding and we're looking at the walls while she showers? I hate it when movies get coy. Of course, we're supposed to be looking at the huge spider crawling on her discarded scarf, but fair's fair. Besides, I was fairly distracted by the rooms...

Inca Treasure Map Rug: I said it before, and I'll say it again. Up yours, 1970's! (It's like the decade home furnishings are trying hard to forget.) We cut back to Diane as she leans out of the shower for a towel... and guess what happens?

MGM Censorship!: The God-damn MGM logo inadvertantly obscures the only skin in the flick! Don't make me angry, movie... remember what I did to Raptor...

Short-Term Memory Issues: Diane returns from her shower to find a Family-Sized spider crawling on her desk. (I remind you, mere hours after the "Massive dose of spider venom" remark.) Sensibly enough, she proceeds to pick up the spider with her bare hands (!!) and releases it (!!!) back outside. Really don't want to tell you your job, lady, but... that thing you picked up was called a "spider". As in "Massive dose of...". Oh, never mind, I'm sure you know what you're doing. Meanwhile, back at Colbys place, he's calling his dog. At least, I ASSUME that's what he's doing...

WHOO!: Either that, or Ric Flair is chopping someone off-screen. The next morning, Jake (The dog) is found to have "done an Old Yeller", lying dead in a field. Man, has THIS week sucked for Colby, or what? Things finally get into first gear after Colby finds out about the "Massive Dose of Poison" concept. Because as it happens, he's noticed a new addition to his farm.

Spider Hill!: That's a bit like Boot Hill, only you need three extra pairs of boots. Rack, Diane and Colby once more prove to have the survival instincts of a chocolate bunny in a blast furnace, standing a foot away from several dozen spiders that have already whacked both a calf and a dog. Diane then goes one step stupider with a little...

Bare-Handed Science!: Okay, she's now picking up venomous spiders with her bare hands. That's probably NOT going to be the smartest tactic in real life. (I'm assuming these type of shots were put in for that whole "Eww, she's holding a tarantula!" reaction, but in all honesty, it just makes her look recklessly stupid.) The spiders don't even really come off as a threat here, as they crawl aimlessly around the sand being mericlessly poked and prodded by the humans. They're actually kind of cute, in an overly leg-endowed, hairy kind of way. Rack once more broaches the subject of dinner with Diane, who blows him off again. Rack, she's rejected you twice in 12 hours, man. Time to buy a clue, buddy.

Cutesy Kid Alert!: Later on, Rack heads over to his sister-in-laws place. There he's greeted by Linda, his neice. She's all of about three years old, but they give her some dialogue. (Which is hardly a spectacularly good idea... it ends up sounding like those stilted, grating voice-overs on Sesame Street skits.) Rack sends her off so he can talk with her mother, goosing her as she goes. It's an innocent gesture, but I'm guessing I can imagine the reaction THAT scene got at B-Fest. Trust me, though... it's a HELL of a lot less disturbing than the "spicy" dialogue Rack trades with the sis-in-law.

Milking analogy BAD!: That's all I'm going to say, don't ask me to eleborate. Maybe it's a rural thing, but still...

Scenic Banter/Early Dinner: Rack still hasn't given up hope of doing the Horizontal Pelvis Dance with Diana, it seems. He "coincidently" meets her on the road, and they trade dialogue in front of some wild-type scenery. Too bad they choose the flattest, dullest piece of Arizona as a backdrop. Rack finally persuades Diana to have dinner with him, despite it being, oh, around 1 in the afternoon. He's a smooth operator, folks.

Devils Tower Diner: Ooh, more rock formations... big ones, too. If you zoom in on this one, you'll probably see Richard Dreyfuss clinging to a ledge. Rack and Diana eat, chat and basically chew up a huge chunk of running time for our benefit. This does allow us to find out that "Rack" came from John, the late brother. (Rack continually lost his paycheck to John playing pool. So "Rack"="Mook", huh?) We also find out that John was killed in the 'Nam. And there's plenty of exposition from Diana, but the diners horrible muzak kept distracting me. I was so enthralled by this lengthy scene, I actually re-wound the tape when a schoool bus drove by in the background. (Just so I could MST the scene with "Sing, damn you, SING! Row, row, row your boat..." You have to make your own entertainment sometimes.) The most entertaining thing in this scene was in fact Dianas interesting pronuciation of a word.

Phe-non-o-mon?: Pho-what-a-who? Later on. we head to the lab for some more arachnid-injuring fun. Diana once more man-handles a spider, even going so far to pin the poor critter down with her forefinger at one stage. I'm starting to side with the spiders, folks. Using the time-tested "Jar-covered-with-clingfilm" technique, Diana gets a specimen of spider venom to analyze. (At least, I HOPE that was venom. Ick.) She manages to ramp up the creepy-ness by... kissing Rack. (While they tongue-wrestle, the spider nearly maeks a getaway, I might add. Are you SURE you two know what you're doing?

Stampeede/Pam Greir goes rural: Deciding to burn the spider hill, our Ineffectual Heros head on out to Colbys place. He's preparing to do the same thing, but suddenly his prize bull goes plumb loco. Pardner.) The beasts breaks out of it's stall (That'll teach Colby to skimp and buy the balsa-wood fences!) and knocks down Colby. On examination, the bull is covered with spiders, of course. (And of course, Dianas first reaction is to pick one off with her bare hands and fling it at the camera.) Rack tries to get Colby and his wife to get back to the house, but Ms. Colby gets all Foxy Bown on us, declaring that they won't be "...Run out by no damn spiders!" You GO, girl!

Fire in the hill!: Okay, that's a bonus God-Awful Pun. Had I actually been at B-Fest 2003, I get the feeling I'd be the first one punched for insessant bad punnage. And so, Colby tips a can of gasoline over the spider hill and sparks one up. The expected spider flambe' is somewhat undermined, as we pan away from the hill to see...

Fire exit!: Nice to see the Spider Hill was up to code, then. Of course, all of two spiders crawl on out. The Kingdom might have been reduced to a Principality of the Spiders.

Family Drama: The next day, believing the spiders to be Crispy Critters, Rack takes Diane over to meet Terri (the sis-in-law) and Linda. Terri plays the good host, then cries in the kitchen at the thought of Rack with another woman. Pathos. Or padding. You choose. Rack and Diane take Linda out for a horseback ride, so we get to see...

Shatner, King of the wild Frontier!: Man, Big Bill loves his horse-riding, huh? Elsewhere, Colby hops in his truck and heads into town. He's carrying a passenger, though. Oh-wee-oooh.

Potential Kid in Peril!: Good idea, Rack... Leave a three-year-old by herself in the wilderness while you go for a stroll with Diane. Uncle of the Year, 1973-76.

Comin'ta'getcha! Colby is served!: Back in Colbys truck, he demonstrates how you can drive for a couple of miles with a stonking great spider crawling over your shoulder. In fact, he remains oblivious to his hitchhiker until he flips down.his sun visor. (Leaving me confused as to wheter there was another lurking up there, or he started screaming when he saw the spider in the mirror.) Either way, Colbys screams echo through the Arizona countryside, and we're down a minor character.

Kids got issues: Back at the picnic site, Linda has a strange conversation with her doll, threatening it with physical violence. I'll leave that up to Cliffie to analyze.

Liesurly picnic... OF THE SPIDERS!: Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk... the movie slipped into neutral, it seems. Wait, the horses are restless! Cue the suspense music!

HUGE spider?/Bad camera angle: Okay, I know it's the POV camera, but apperently the approaching spider is big enough to push twigs away from it. What is it, Arach-Zilla? The Evil POV shot continues until we're right underneath the kid, practically looking up her shorts. Now I think the DIRECTOR has issues. At the last second, however, Rack calls Linda and tells her they're leaving. Phew, my heart was racing there. Not. However, Linda drops her bucket and spade getting up.

Just call me "Dusty"!: Right onto the spider, of course... the sand-blasted creature crawls out afterwards, but if I was him, I'd activly hunt down humans now. Those spiders are getting a REALLY raw deal out of this flick. (And it gets worse, believe me.)

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3 Days Later
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Okay, I'm back. Typical. Halfway through the first full review I've attempted in months, I contract gastric 'flu and end up feeling like John Hurt in "Alien". So, despite it being a week since my first viewing of the film, I'm going from memory and trying to finish this puppy in double-quick time.

So, on the way home from the Family Picnic of Tediousness, Rack runs into Sherrif Donut-Mucher, who's found Colbys car. The rescue crew is having trouble retrieving it, as it's gone down a bank. The Sherrif complains that he's going to "break his nexk" climbing down, so Rack leads trhe way. When in doubt, call a veternarian, I always say. The Sherrif kind of looks like a big sissy-girl, really, as the "descent" is a dirt bank maybe fifteen feet high. Sherrif Wussbag. When they make it to the bottom of the "cliff" (*PHEW*), they actly like manly-men to lever open the door of Colbys truck. Cue the Rapoidly-Appearing Corpse Trick, so beloved of film-makers since, oh, "Jaws" first srcreened.

It is, of course, Colby, and he's not only dead, but totally be-webbed, creating a kind of proto-Micheal Jackson effect. We head to the tear-jearking Scene O' Pathos, as Sherrif Puss breaks the news to Colbys wife. (Which he does by breaking down and embracing her without actually telling her the sad news. Way to remain professional, dude.) Back in the lab, Rack and Diane (Which sounds like a John Cougar Mellencamp out-take, now I come to think about it...) do more science stuff. I remember the MGM logo distracting me again, this time appearing to be a really huge, semi-transparent belt buckle on Diane. (Only JUST bigger than Racks ACTUAL belt buckle, though.) Shatner gets to do some of his trademark dramatic act........ING, fielding a call about another 20-30 more spider hills on Colbys farm. Everyone heads on out to check on them, resulting in pretty much all of the towns authority figures standing within five feet of the Eight-Legged Heinous Death Machines. (PS: That's the best name for a heavy-metal band I've come up with this week.)

The Mayor, is of course, only concerned with his upcoming County Fair. I guess when you live in a place as dull as Deathrattle, Arizona, cancelling the only entertainment WOULD push the suicide rate sky-high. Mayor Amity decides to call in the cropduster we saw earlier, declaring that he spray "Every square inch of Arizona, if that's what it takes!". But what about the rocks? Won't somebody think of the rocks?! Diane and Rack play eco-warriors, but the Mayor takes no heed of their protests. And so we get to see a Daring Young (Well, Aging) Redneck in his flying machine take to the skies. (And just as he takes off, we get to see a single spider literally get thrown onto the runway behind him. (Prompting me to dub the spider with a shout of "TAXI!") My notes have the phrase "Aliens Death" scrawled on them at this stage. My prediction came true fairly quickly, as the cropduster becomes the Biplane... OF THE SPIDERS! Pretty soon, the pilot is practically crawling with tarantulas. (Man, it just proves you have to shake out your boots, AND your plane in Arizona.) I learnt something here.

FUN FACT: Getting eaten by venemous spiders makes you the best aerobatic pilot in three counties.

Eventually (And by "eventually", I mean an entire air-show worth of loops, stalls and barrel rolls later), the biplane narrowly avoids wiping out Rack, Diane and the Sherrif and bulls-eyes a local business. Everyone tries to rescue the pilot, desite the fact that he hit a petrol-station.(!!) Sorry, if there's a flaming plane embedded in a store three feet from a petrol pump, I'm running the OTHER way. Okay, that's the pilot cacked... now who can we put in peril? Well, who else? Back to Terri's place we go, to see Linda happily playing on her swing. The kid obviously has the observational skills the rest of the townsfolk exhibit, being completely oblivious to approximately 473 tarantulas crawling underneath her. Terri spots them from the house and goes into a maternal spazz-attack, rushing out to "save" the kid from the moderately-threatening arachnids. (To be fair, at this stage of the film the spiders have been referred to as an "agressive army". Albeit a rather randomly-motivated, sluggishly-crawling one.) Terri starts a trend here by tossing Linda around like a football. ("Blue 32! Blue 32! HIKE THE KID!") It's also the first time that the wardrobe department can be called to task for Lindas' outfit. (As by the end of the flim, her underpants have practically earned a credit for supporting actor. Would it have killed them to find a pair of overalls for her?) Terri hits the deck on the way back to the house, possibly brought down by some sort of cunning spider-built tripwire, and is instantly covered in tarantulas. Maybe they've developed teleportational skills? (This plot development I admit surprised me... few films have the grapefruits to orphan the Cutesy Child charater like that.)

[Well, so much for finishing this quickly. Thank you, slow day at work.]

Rack turns up, just AFTER the nick of time to find Terri dead in the yard. He proceeds to swat spiders around with his bare hands again, even flicking one at the camera. (The second instance in the flim... was this shot in 3-D?) Hearing screams from inside, he races in to save Linda, who's standing on a table that's crawling with the critters. (The kid seems to gain strange spider-attracting powers in the last quarter hour or so of the flick...) Rack traumatises both Linda and me by pausing to flick a spider off his overly-tight trousers. Leave your crotch ALONE, Bill!

At the Lodge, the remaining major players barricade themselves in, turning the finale of the flick into "Night of the Living...SPIDERS!". (With a side-order of "The Deadly Bees" as the spiders finally get around to trashing the County Fair.) I'm going to dispense with the in-depth analysis in protest of the amount of obviously real spiders squashed, swatted, sprayed, runn over, boiled, flicked and stomped on in the final scenes. (Somehow I doubt this film would get the Humane Societys Seal of Approval...) I will say that as the running time winds down, the Lodge Detain-ees prove time and time again that they have the survival skills of a clinically depressed lemming. With a bad crack habit. Hear a strange noise in the air conditioning? Open a vent and then act surprised as spiders tumble out onto the stove. Got a defenceless kid to look out for? Put her to bed in an upstairs room, then act surprised as the Li'l Spider-Magnet wakes up surrounded by creepy critters. (Leading to the jaw-dropping sight of Rack hurling her to the floor like he's celebrating a touchdown.) A VERY minor character (Remember "Fred"? No, me either...) gets cocooned. (To be fair, he was practically pre-dessicated to begin with.) A major character gets offed, another LOOKS like he's been whacked, only to survive through the twin miracles of science and dodgy scriptwriting, and the most-annoying person in the film survives. (I'm looking at YOU, Mrs. Johnson from Colorado. You shrieking harpy.)

And so, our film ends. And to preserve the suspense for future generations, I won't give away the ending for once. Except to transcribe my final note...

SPIDERS WIN! SPIDERS WIN! SPIDERS WIN!

I love a happy ending.