Friday, May 31, 2013

KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS / Arachnid Productions Ltd. - 1977

It's the last day in May 2013 with Tabonga, here at The Dungeon!.. We gots a flick that was filmed in Camp Verde, Arizona with a cost of $500,000 that grossed $17,000,000 just in the US! It stars The Shat in a popular movie trend of the time, spiders and insects gone mad! Here are a few other titles from that time warp... THE GIANT SPIDER INVASION, ANTS, BUG, EMPIRE OF THE ANTS, THE SWARM, THE NEST and DAMNATION ALLEY... Nice Mexican lobby card!

Eegah!! sent over a soundclip of the theme song sung by Dorsey Burnette, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button there by the giant spider web, NOW, Rufus The Gnat! Here's our audio offering for... KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS!

Here's Bill ten years after STAR TREK as cowboy veterinarian, Dr. Robert 'Rack' Hansen. He played a lot of pool as a teenager, when his brother won the game (which was always), it was his job to "rack" up the balls. Here, he's investigating the mysterious death of a neighbor's calf.

Enter love interest Tiffany Bolling as scientist Dr. Diane Ashley, she's getting all cleaned up after arriving in Arizona to do some research. Ironically for this post, Tiffany played the Spider Lady in ELECTRA WOMAN AND DYNA GIRL.

Okay, things are starting to get a little weird around here!..

This crop duster was on its way to kill some spiders with DDT, but, the pilot forgot to check for tarantulas before he took off! When I was a kid I got to see plenty of up-close crop dusting at my cousin's house in the country.

You might want to think twice about moving to Arizona, you know, if you were.

This poor old dude never woke up from his nap!

It's a damn shame when you have to kill a bunch of living creatures for "realism" purposes, that's one thing that really bugs the Hell out of us, here at The Dungeon!

What the?!!..

One of the more interesting parts is where this junker Ford takes out a support beam of the water tower while driving like a maniac trying to get away from the tarantulas! That cop car gets crushed real good.

As we can all see, things don't turn out too well for the people of Camp Verde, looks like Camp Blanco, tarantulas win this one!

7 comments:

A Southern Horror Fan said...

Saw this at the drive in when I was a kid! Think it and Tarantula is the reason I still freak over the little things [spiders]!

TABONGA! said...

Rickey, I actually saw TARANTULA at the theater when it came out, back in the day!.. It was double billed with THE WEREWOLF.

Eegah!! said...

Dorsey Burnette was the older brother of the legendary Johnny Burnette, and along with Johnny was also a Golden Gloves boxing champion! The hit of his that I will always remember was the classic "Tall Oak Tree!"

Brown Rice and Beans said...

I never knew The Shat was a vegetarian!

zillagord said...

greatest thing about this one: tarantulas don't spin webs. oops.

oh, second best i mean. nothingtops the shat-man!

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

Great horror/science fiction flick.love it so grew up on it. Really well done. Brought it to 10th grade science class in 01'! Oh and Tarantulas do use webbing to encase their pray and to line their dens.

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