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Author
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Topic: The Kingdom of Spiders 400ft
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Tom Photiou
Film God
Posts: 4837
From: Plymouth U.K
Registered: Dec 2003
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posted September 10, 2012 04:18 PM
I almost forgot about this old 400ft cutdown in my collection,
The 1977 sci-fi horror with William Shatner in the lead role.
Very briefly this cutdown begins with the old BBFC AA certificate, the film begins with what is clearly an attack on a calf, (seen from a spider POV),cut to Rob Hanso,(Shatner)examinig the dead calf & clearly unsure of what could have caused it. A few days later, Diane Ashley, an arachnologist, arrives looking for Hansen. Ashley tells Hansen that the calf was killed by a massive dose of spider venom, which Hansen greets with skepticism.Hansen is still not convinced, until Colby,(the farmer), states that he recently found a massive spider hill on a back section of his farmland. He takes Hansen and Ashley to the hill, which is covered with tarantulas.
Next up we see Colby attacked in his truck the next day, sending it over the side of a hill and killing him. Fade into Hansen helping the sheriff at the accident scene, Gene Smith (David McLean),as they examine the wreckage Colby's body is found encased in a cocoon of spider webs.
Next up, a crop duster is enlisted to spray pesticide over the area of the spider hills, as he climbs in his plane he pauses to draw a little spider kill on his plane,with a little grin. Once the pilot is airborne, he is attacked by tarantulas, and crashes the plane before he can disperse the spray. (These are very clever spiders ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) )
Moving toward the finale, the spiders begin their assault on the local residents, a choas and killing rage ensues, bloodied bodies bound in webs lie littered all over the town as the residents are fleeing for there lives, many of them covered in the eight legged fluffy things!!
I have to say at this point,clearly many of the tarantulas are real,(most arnt),how those actors laid still while they crawled over them is beyond me.
Hansen and survivors are now at a Lodge.
They barricade themselves inside. Meanwhile, Sheriff Smith tries to escape the town in his truck but is killed when another car crashes into a support post under the town's water tower, causing it to fall on his vehicle.
Back at the lodge, the power goes out, Hansen is forced to go into the basement to change a blown fuse. He succeeds, but is overwhelmed by spiders who break through one of the basement windows by using their combined numbers in weight. He makes it upstairs just in time to be saved by Ashley.
The film concludes the following day, with the survivors listening for news of the attacks on a radio. To their surprise, the radio broadcast doesn't mention the attacks, indicating that the outside world is oblivious to what has happened. Hansen pries off the boards from one of the lodge's windows, and discovers that the entire building is encased in a giant web cocoon. The camera pulls back, and all of Camp Verde is encased in cocoons as well. Quite a spooky & unusal ending.
Thats the story so what of the print?
This is actually very well cut down from beginng to end,(with a generous original end title sequence. The print itself has excellent sound, the picture is sharp throughout and mine has stood the test of time, the colour is still excellent with (i would say) around 5-10% fade. The only time any fade is noticed is when a scene fades out and into the next there is slight red in the short black screen. Other than this i cant fault this copy at all. I think i bought this from Perrys stall at Ealing for £4.00 in his bargin box. Tonight i viewed it with a point of selling it but now ive seen it im going to hang on to it, i cant remeber the last time i saw this on any list.
A great fun 400 footer with corny acting, real spiders walking among the rubber fake ones, but some pretty good moments in there as well, one thats done quite well is the plane crashing into buildings. One of the better low buget 70s "nature gone wrong" films. I almost forgot, you gotta laugh at the poor mans psycho music everytime theres a kill, why did so many films try and rip off that shower scene music,it never works ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
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Tom Photiou
Film God
Posts: 4837
From: Plymouth U.K
Registered: Dec 2003
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posted September 11, 2012 06:45 AM
Marshall, you are correct on the music, it was taken directly from the Twilight Zone due to trying to keep within a budget,
Hugh, I found this online which does show why you have every right to be concerned over the tarantulas as many were killed,take a read of this, I was also quite surprised,
Kantor told Fangoria magazine in 1998 that the film did indeed use 5,000 of the large, hairy spiders, though a number of rubber model spiders were also used during production. The live tarantulas were procurred by offering Mexican spider wranglers US$10 for each live tarantula they could find; this meant that $50,000 of the film's $500,000 budget went towards the purchase of spiders.
The large amount of tarantulas kept on-hand led to some unusual production difficulties. Not only did each spider have to be kept warm, but because of the creatures' cannibalistic tendencies, all 5,000 spiders had to be kept in separate containers. Additionally, tarantulas are usually shy around people, so fans and air tubes often had to be used to get the spiders to walk towards their "victims". Indeed, in a number of the scenes where the tarantulas are "attacking" people, it is obvious to the viewer that the spiders are merely moving around, usually away from their intended victims.
The country music songs heard on the radio in the movie, as well as over the opening and closing credits, were performed by country singer Dorsey Burnette.
Thank you to all for your kind words.
[ September 11, 2012, 12:04 PM: Message edited by: Tom Photiou ]
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