Kingdom of the Spiders

Kingdom of the Spiders is one of those instant classics that creeps you out.

William Shatner is a veterinarian that lives out west in Verde Valley, Arizona.  A small town where everyone knows everyone.  The movie begins with a rancher trying to get a calf ready for the county fair.  Only, when he puts the calf out in its pen, it gets sick and they have to call in Shatner.  Shatner gets some blood samples and sends it off to the lab at University of Arizona.  The results are personally delivered by the university lady to Shatner, and the calf's death is determined to be due to spider venom.

The university lady wanted to come to town so that she could see the carcass and also investigate where the calf was killed.  The rancher tells the two that he found a spider hill on his property and they go to view it.  "I don't think DDT is going to kill them".  If you don't know what DDT is, it kills everything that flies, crawls, walks, or swims.  But somehow, the tarantulas that built this mound have adjusted to the poison and changed their eating habits.  Since there are no more insects for the spiders to eat, they are now going after larger prey.  It is determined that the spider mound must be burned.  Don't worry.  The spiders must have known that they had a potential fire hazard on their hands and built an escape hatch.

The spiders get into everything.  Trucks, homes, and even the crop duster that was used in spreading some poison in an attempt to kill off the eight legged demons.  The tarantulas have organized themselves into an aggressive little army and begin picking off people in town.  Nobody is safe and panic runs wild.

Shatner and a small group think that they will be safe a lodge just outside of town.  They board up everything and try to make sure that lodge is impenetrable from the creepy crawlers.  But the spiders are clever.  From knocking out the fuse box to crawling through the vent fans, they are doing whatever they need to do to get to those people.  The movie ends with the entire town covered in spider webs.

Tarantulas: 1
The town of Verde Valley: 0

I give this movie 2 1/2 out of 5 tarantulas.