Kingdom of the Shatner

Before it became a treasure chest of cleverly themed Law & Order: SVU marathons, the USA Network was a haven of sorts for random genre films. Chief among that rotation was today's short-astic AND Shat-astic creature feature, Kingdom of the Spiders.

Quick Plot: A quiet farm town in Arizona struggled through 50 weeks of the calendar in order to reap the benefits of the fortnight long country fair. Nothing can possibly stop this national attraction from bringing wealth to everyone, right?

Oh you silly post-Jaws movie characters. Haven't you learned anything?

As a local farmer's prized calf falls victim to mysteriously deadly spider venom, a no-nonsense entymologist is brought in to diagnose the problem. Keeping her comfortable is the town stud/veterinarian Rack, played by William Shatner as if he were trying to convince viewers that he is indeed William Shatner. The Shat is in his ladies' man prime here, giving us the kind of southwestern charm that would melt any female scientist's icy heart. Seriously, what woman could resist a line like "You're kind of pretty for a girl?" 

Apparently, negative amounts of women. Shat is so Shat that he has not one but TWO women pining for his affections, one being the aforementioned city gal scientist and the other, the wife of his late little brother. This leads to all sorts of weird sexual innuendos about how Shat would like to milk his brother's widow, though she only wants him to do so with war hands, but ACTUALLY he wants nothing sexy of her because she's his little brother's widow. I realize this sounds confusing, but I offer no apologies: how do you think I felt watching it?

Anyway, Shat gets a girl (or two) as the mysteriously venomous spiders start building terrifyingly giant hills and biting locals, be they the long-suffering farmers or a cocky crop-dusting pilot with the greatest girl scream in cinema history. At a certain point, the mayor doesn't even bother showing up to remind us that the film is retreading Jaws territory because EVERYONE IS BEING EATEN BY TARANTULAS.

It's kind of a thing of beauty.

For a girl.

Kingdom of the Spiders is one of the better known titles from that wonderfully rich subgenre of Nature Strikes Back. Like so many of those films, it crams in some social commentary about man's disruption of the animal world through pollution. The adorable thing about Kingdom of the Spiders, however, is just how quickly it abandons that theme when the spider action hits. A heated debate about spraying DDT ensues, but once the pilot administering it is (hilariously) killed, it's straight on to tarantula porn from that point on. Shat and his scientist girlfriend never offer any reasonable action towards eliminating the threat of man-eating tarantulas, and our final act is left to an alternatively funny/creepy siege as the arachnids pound on glass windows to eat our last heroes.

You think I'm kidding, but among the other things Kingdom of the Spiders taught me is the fact that a bunch of tarantulas sticking to a glass window will eventually cause it to shatter. My dream MythBusters experiment to test this theory would of course be to find as many of those suction cap handed Garfields as possible and see how long before they come to life, morph into one all-powerful Critters 2-like being, and eat people. 

That might be testing a different theory. 

High Points
Look, only the freakishly brave/possibly cyborg people are not disturbed by the fuzzy grandeur of tarantulas, and Kingdom of the Spiders utilizes this life fact to pretty skin-crawling degree

Low Points
Sadly, much of this was accomplished in the kind of pre-90s manner that killed a good deal of the stunt spiders used in filming

Lessons Learned
Shooting your hand off doesn’t hurt too much

In some parts of the country, a dog that is visibly breathing is considered dead

If it ain’t Arizona, it’s all the same

Just because it only takes a handful of abnormally venomous tarantulas to take down a cow does not mean it takes five times that amount to take down the Shat

It is impossible to dodge tarantulas without looking as though you are skipping down the Yellow Brick Road

This wouldn’t be the first horror film to teach it, but reinforcement is always educational: if planning on ever being stuck in your location as human-eating zombies/demons/spiders abound, always be sure to stock up on wooden furniture

Fun Fact
Ve Neill, best known to modern day audiences as the kickass judge of SyFy’s Face Off (and my dream aunt to drink mimosas with at family reunions) worked as a makeup artist for the film

Rent/Bury/Buy
Kingdom of the Spiders is a worthy cult classic that should certainly be seen by any genre fan. The recent special edition DVD release is loaded with goodies, including a commentary track and terrifying hands-on demonstration with a famed spider wrangler who knows no fear. So throw down a few bucks and get your own copy. Where else can you find so many musical cues borrowed directly from the Twilight Zone library? Where else can you find William Shatner heroically hurling his toddler niece only the hard wooden floor covered by toddler-eating tarantulas? What other films end on such glorious matte paintings? All of these things and more make Kingdom of the Spiders something truly special.

Let the Wrong One Live: The 5 Worst Survivors In Horror History

As some of you know and others don't care about, I spent the last year or so contributing to Pop Syndicate, a recently renovated website that lost all its past content (and writers). The following article appeared in 2009 and since you can't find it anywhere else in InterWorld, I'm rerunning it here. Apologies for the deja vu.

Don’t you hate it when the wrong ones get away? While the majority of kill-heavy horror films know the proper hunting formula, every now and then, some undeserving soul smiles triumphantly in the final freeze frame, leaving the audience to scratch their heads and sit through seven minutes or so of badly scored credits, waiting in the hope that the director was saving his final kill for those with patience to spare.

What follows is a spoiler-rich countdown of films that leave us wanting more...blood. Specifically, enough to drain the life out of a survivor or two.

5. Day and Land of the Dead

Some critics have observed that Uncle Romero has softened in recent years, but I take it one step back and argue he’s still burning off the sweetness from eating too many chocolate Bonkers in the 80s. Day of the Dead has a fine collection of Savini packaged blood and guts, but the fact that none come out of the bodies of any ‘good’ character takes a certain depth out of the movie. Likewise, Land of the Dead loses a sympathetic John Lequizamo, but once again, our rather dull heroes get to ride off into the twilight in full force. There’s a reason so many people felt empty at the end of Romero’s quadrilogy finale: very little happened to the people we were meant to care about.  I do realize that Diary of the Dead has a richer body count, but, well...I just didn’t care enough about the living or deceased to really include it here.

4. Kingdom of the Spiders

There's no reason for William Shatner's heroic veterinarian to die in this 1977 tarantula flick...no reason, except, say, the fact that he gets bitten by about twenty DDT enhanced arachnids who had previously proved that one nibble was enough to take down a horse. Was there some sort of antidote in Kirk’s far too prominent belt buckle? Did the tightness of his jeans prevent the venom from spreading through his doughy body? Even if his (and quite possibly the rest of the world’s) fate is left tangled up in webs, Shatner’s survival is a cheat.

3. Snakes On a Plane

If you build your marketing campaign around earning an R rating, you have a responsibility to your ticket buying public to provide inventive kills and little mercy. Snakes On a Plane never got that memo, as observed by the surviving characters that include the bland leading man, an obnoxious Beverly Hills brat actually named Mercedes, and worst of all, two bratty little kids who should have been marked for death in the first reel. Even a dud like 1976's Rattlers  had the nerve to knock off a few obnoxious child actors in the pre-credit sequence. Snakes On a Plane, on the other hand, teased us with bad assery and delivered a de-fanged bite.

2. Silent NIght, Deadly Night

As my Catholic school-educated mother has often said, nuns are evil. Mother Superior (Jean Miller), the primary villain in this notorious 1986 Santa Clause slasher, is arguably the least likable character in a film exclusively populated by extremely unlikable characters. You'd think the filmmakers--who so clearly hate everything in this world--would revel in the chance take a few shots at a God-fearing and child-hating Dominican. You'd think wrong. Somehow the woman partially responsible for harnessing little Billy’s psychotic tendencies and mind-boggling confusion over what Santa Clause actually does gets to celebrate another Christmas (probably by slapping the wrists of orphans with a candy cane). The only redeeming factor is that the world’s meanest nun loses her habited head in the gloriously bad sequel.

1. Scream 3

By all accounts, David Arquette’s bumbling Sheriff Dwight Riley should never have survived Wes Craven’s first installment of this meta-slasher. I’ll accept the fact that Dewy was just too gosh darn lovable for test screen audiences to mourn. I’ll even give him a free pass for Part 2 since Randy was sacrificed. But by the third installment, his number was up. Remember the ads that boasted how no one was safe? Apparently they were referring to Jenny McCarthy, the other guy from Felicity, and the token black dude. We loyal fans, who survived Courteney Cox’s bangs and Nev Campbell’s squints, get to end with the lamest double date in horror history. 

So dear bloodthirsty readers, please share your cravings: which last men, women, and children standing would you like to see get a much more exciting alternate ending?

Advice, Entertainment, Jack Nicholson In Leopard Print & More!

Just cause...

Recommending films can be tricky territory, particularly when your cinematic love is on the line.

So you overhear your coworker talking about a horror movie they watched last night. Some darkly lit ghost story about cell phones stealing the souls of pretty college students, with the dude from Lost acting all broody and Kristen Bell looking cute. They can’t seem to express just how awful it was, as all the words that come out seem to be “It sucked” and “stupid” and “it’s a f*cking cell phone!”\

Sigh. 

Naturally, you feel the need to intervene. To cross cubicle walls and spread the word of just why the American remake of Pulse was so awful. The lack of location, bland visuals, neutered violence and simple fact that it took one of the less interesting aspects of its namesake--the basic plot--and juiced it for all the glossy PG13 J-by-way-of-USA-horror it could. 

You do one better. At the stroke of 6, you return home to your shiny pile of DVDs and wake up the next morning fully pleased with the good deed you’re about to do. You step into the office and casually lend Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Kairo to that guy in accounting, accepting his thanks and nodding knowingly. “I’ll watch it this weekend!” he gratefully enthuses. You smile and start to picture the poetically haunting nightmares he’ll have after.

Come Monday, there’s that familiar shadow-filled case on your desk, classlessly decorated with a Post-It that says “Thanks.” You cruise to the water cooler expecting some wide-eyed recap about some Internet-plus-masking-tape inspired nightmare. Your co-worker refills his paper cup without making eye contact.

“Yeah, it was okay. Kinda slow.” 

Fool! You shout with coffee breath. How blind, how foolish, how utterly mistaken this disgusting acquaintance has proven himself to be. You can’t possibly put your name on the same lunch order or ever again borrow the pencil sharpener from a man with such poor taste.

Sadly you both have job security and the office isn’t getting any bigger. Shunning proves to be far more difficult than Dwight Schrute ever let on, so where do you go from here? End all conversations that don’t involve memos, or take up the challenge to make him a better man?

It’s never too late to save a cinematic soul, but it’s also way too easy to blow your chance at DVD redemption. Just because a casual acquaintance enjoyed Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead does not necessarily mean he’ll worship George Romero’s original

I know, I know. This man in question is an idiot and/or possible agent of Satan, but just because you and I may have grown up fighting over who got to play Peter (so what if you happened to be female and white; that’s why it’s called make-believe) does not mean that deservedly beloved classic will instantly register with someone still virginal in the sensuous ways of the undead. Modern viewers are not just bored by what seems like long stretches of actionless shopping or stiff acting; they’re sometimes baffled by why and how a two-hour opus about a handful of nobodies playing dress-up and occasionally shooting blue-hued zombies is considered your favorite movie of all time.

Taste is one thing, but every person--particularly a film lover--is fairly near-sighted when it comes to personal picks. It’s far too easy to alienate friends by forcing the wrong movies on them at the wrong time, especially when you genuinely want to introduce them to a particular genre. There are a few--okay, a lot--considerations one must take when sharing a video catalog. A few examples:

1. Sexual content

Obviously, you want to be wary of lending your officemate I Spit On Your Grave for fear of sexual harassment charges, but even milder films can rub some viewers the wrong way as soon as certain taboos take over the screen. At this point, there’s little David Cronenberg can really do to knock the monocle out of your eye, but someone who grew up blushing at Sharon Stone’s Basic Instinct leg crossover might be utterly speechless at the sight of Marilyn Chambers’ flashing her armpit vagina in Rabid. Baby steps is sometimes the key, so work your subject’s way up from tamer fare like eXistenZ. One day, medieval gynecological instruments and Jeremy Irons kinkiness might not be so shocking. Until then, save Dead Ringers for the identical twin within yourself.

2. Subtitles

Even the true cinemaniac needs to be in the proper mindset to sit through two hours of small, sometimes foggy font. At the same time, even the most book burning couch potato might forget the fact that he’s reading once those uzis start blasting away teenagers in Battle Royale. When recommending a foreign film to someone not accustomed to subtitles, some consideration is necessary. Let the Right One In may have topped international critics’ lists, but put the DVD on in an ambivalent viewer’s comfy apartment and don’t be terribly shocked to hear snores from the other side of the couch. 

3. Overhype

I still find it adorable that Frankenstein was to my mother’s nightmares what Pet Semetary was to mine. I also remember thinking anybody that called The Exorcist the scariest film of all time had clearly never seen Child’s Play. I know, what an insolent youth I was, but this is what happens when you force your love and fear upon someone not yet versed or invested in the same film canon. 

One day, I hope to assemble an epic guide to initiate the willing into the magical world that is horror, cult, and general genre cinema that I know and love. Then again, my taste is more questionable than how to pronounce Ellen Burstyn’s last name so who am I to judge what the world needs to see? 

Someone with a lot of DVDs, that’s who. 

So how do you approach recommendations regarding lesser known and more controversial films? Any tips or tidbits that beat the lesson I learned from my “hey! I’ll bring a scary movie to my friend’s teenage slumber party. Here’s an old VHS called Mother’s Day!” story of my eighth grade memories?

Sequelize Me

Last week, I looked at a few sequels that do the right thing and deliver some sort of quality the second (or fourth) time around. Feeling confident in the possibility of franchises, I figured I’d throw my support to a few stand-alone films that could possibly benefit from a solid followup. I had planned an extensive list rounded up to a flashy number like “13” or the ever popular “50,” but the more I thought about it, the harder it was to come up with movies I think warrant more installments. I love my random little oddities like The Stuff or Identity, but having seen one too many Hitcher retread or Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Graves, I figured I’d slow down and think not only about what to follow up, but how to bring on another round while serving it cinematic justice

1. Scarecrows

This little seen 1988 film utilizes one of rural America’s most fearsome creations, adding a touch of zombiism to very tall burlap sackheads hunting a band of plane hijacking bank robbers. It’s short, cheap, and incredibly creepy, plus worthy of plenty of bonus points for featuring the scariest cornfield since Malachi and Isaac played hide-and-seek behind the rows. Its long-awaited (by me) DVD release came just two years ago with nary a special feature, leaving the possibility of a sequel looking slimmer than the stick these monsters are mounted on. Still, scarecrows are freaky, abandoned farms look great on camera, and the world can always use more reminders of how tasty homegrown corn really is.

Title: Scariercrows

Plot Proposal:Keep it simple. What works so well in the original is the film’s isolated setting and crustily ragged villains. While I loved the fact that the titular scarecrows’ victims were a little older than your typical horror bait, a sequel could cast just about anyone as straw meat. Horny teens would be a tad too trite, so let’s keep the shifty hero angle and crash a prisoners’ transport bus en route a corrections facility. Give us a big bloody car accident to kick things off, followed by physically and morally intimidating characters trying to survive the night. We’d even get an excuse for why nobody would call the authorities, since escape would be the second goal on everybody’s mind. Toss in some internal gang friction to compete with the brain chompers and you’ve got plenty of material to stuff into 90 minutes or more.

Tagline: If they only didn't eat brains...

2. Kingdom of the Spiders

It’s unlikely that William Shatner will ever fit back into those Levi jeans, but few creature features could dare to end on such an oddly eerie note as this 1977 arachnid holocaust. From goofy CGI jumpers to Middle Earthian monsters, we’ve seen our share of spiders in cinema over the last thirty years, but none have really come close to capturing the total icky fear factor of fuzzy tarantulas bent on world domination. Until now.

Title: Kingdom of the Spiders II: The World Wide Web

Possible Plot: It’s been 30 years since the carnivorous arachnids coated the earth in their silk. Since then, mankind has been driven underground, occasionally venturing above to  scavenge for food while trying to avoid being scavenged themselves. It’s a brutal world but one plucky survivor vows to take down the the eight-legged apocalypse causing freaks by creating a juice that will melt those Kevlar strength webs and poison their spinners. The secret ingredient: Aquanet, discovered in prime condition in an abandoned Kmart (commercial sponsor alert). An all-out toxic battle ensues as Charlotte, our heroine, leads the ragtag army in pumping the remnants of the sewer system with a powerful mix of hairspray and carbonation, melting the prickly hairs right off those bulbous bodies and culminating in an explosion Michael Bay could only dream of. Naturally, there are casualties on the human side (both insect and aerosol related) to give us a rowdy last 30 minutes, but our homo sapien cousins ultimately emerge victorious...until the final shot reveals one lone egg-dragging arachnid sprouting a ninth leg and some very, very puffy hair. Could Part 3 be just around the corner?

Tagline: Along came some spiders 

To sit down beside us

And suck out our guts till the end of days

3. Killer Klowns From Outer Space

Perhaps the very definition of a cult (or more appropriately, kult) movie, this 1988 film truly is like no other. Yes, its pure uniqueness can probably never ever in a hundred strobe light years be matched but you know what? I want more. You want more. We all. Want more.

Title: Massacre In the Milky Way: Komeback of the Klowns

Possible Plot: When we last spotted the balloon-dog walking extraterrestials, things didn’t look so funny. Their circus spaceship had seemingly been blown to bits, leaving nothing behind but the crumbs of acidic cream pies...or so we thought!

We open with an overhead shot of the colorful explosion, slowly--then manically--panning out, up, down, in, swirl, and loop-di-loop as the camera travels through what’s revealed to be a bendy telescope watched by the weeping amber eye of a newly crowned war widow klowness. Primal screams and bicycle horn honks rock what we now see to be the mother ship. That’s right: that yellow-and-red striped tent was just one vessel of the nomadic tribe. There were two vehicles sent down that fateful day in California. 

One made it home.

So many directions a sequel to the greatest film of all time could go, it’s near impossible to find a starting point. Another earth invasion would be dandy, but klowns deserve more innovation than that. Remember how certain ladies were, instead of being wrapped in flesh-eating cotton candy, enclosed in giant bouncy balls and kept alive? Obviously, there was an ulterior motive but get your dirty minds out of Pennywise’s gutter. There will be no God Told Me To-like yellow auras or Cronenbergian births. Turns out, for all their pie-throwing, shadow puppeteering, car racing skills, our anitheroic race has one circus niche that remains unfilled amongst their kind: trapeze artists. Hence, light young women are being collected to complete the Klown show. What follows is an orgy of genres and film tropes never before united in such light-hearted PG-13 rated bliss: women in prison plotting + martial arts training montages x ginormous Caligulaesque scenery - phallic imagery x space travel sci-fi + Italian cannibal cinema / Space Jam - bicycles + unicycles. Oh, and that’s just before the opening credits.

By the end of the film, we’ll get a hotheaded crimson plastic haired mother seeking vengeance, acrobatic acts to rival Cirque de Soleil, a balloon dog attack, and a Romeo & Julietish love story that kicks the slimy green butt out of V’s tepid lizard-meets-dumb-teen drama. I smell an Oscar. It has the faint odor of stale popcorn and burnt corndogs.

Tagline: Fear Has a New Facepaint 

A tad too fan fictiony for your tastes? How would you follow up the Brothers Chiodo masterpiece, Shatner’s brave spider stomping, and Scarecrows’s creepy night hunts? Also, what are some of the single entry genre films you think deserve a second go ‘round? I'll give a hardy vote to The Wicker Man--a Robin Hardy vote that is, as he's currently working on a follow up to his classic pagan musical. Unbreakable is essentially a two hour prologue to a movie yet to be made, and I always wondered what happened to the newest member of Tod Browning's Freaks. Share your votes below. Bonus points for plot synopsis!