Movie Review of Kingdom of Spiders

Synopsis: Farmers in Arizona are terrorized by thousands of tarantulas that are starving as the result of over use of pesticides and are preying on livestock and humans as an alternative.

Who's in it? William Shatner, Tiffany Bolling, Woody Strode and David McLean.

What I liked about this movie: I think I might have said this once before but, when it comes to horror movies, the biggest, scariest, chainsaw carrying serial killer will never be as creepy as a tiny bug. And, there were a lot of spiders in this movie; enough to give you the feeling something is crawling up your leg at any given moment.

What really impressed me about this movie was the feeling of hopelessness throughout (something that always makes movies like this more interesting to watch). Whenever they attempt to stop the spiders using fire or poison, they fail and there's no way of knowing if this is one of those movies that will have a miraculous happy ending (such as a freak blizzard that kills all the spiders) or if everyone will die.

I also have to say I was impressed with William Shatner in this movie. I think just about everyone has done a Captain Kirk impression and he's known for his overacting in other movies/series. But, while not totally believable as a veterinarian in this film, he held his own and even managed to carry a few scenes.

What I didn't like about this movie: The film does tend to drag on a bit, at least in the earlier scenes and, to be honest, I was starting to get bored to the point I considered turning it off; at least until things finally started to get going.

Even though the film does manage to keep the ending a secret, some parts did end up being a bit predictable. For example, whenever anyone gets in a car (and this is mostly because they were all stupid enough to leave their windows rolled down), you pretty much expect spiders to come crawling out from behind the seat. This is the same with the airplane scene.

Final Opinion: It's not quite as good as the 1990 film "Arachnophobia" but it is still much better than people would expect it to be. It definitely had me checking for spiders before going to bed.

My Grade: 3 stars out of a possible 5.