Kingdom of the Spiders (1977) on Netflix
In Verde Valley, Arizona, veterinarian Rack Hansen cannot explain what killed Walter Colby's prize calf. Arachnologist Diane Ashley says venom did it, and the farm holds a hill of tarantulas.
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- Netflix2.8/5
- IMDb5.7/107,179 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes55%
Trailer
Plot summary
Walter Colby's prize calf sickens for no clear reason on his farm outside Verde Valley, Arizona, and dies soon after he brings it to the local veterinarian, Rack Hansen. Hansen cannot say what made the animal fail so quickly, so he sends samples of the blood to a university laboratory in Flagstaff. Days later the arachnologist Diane Ashley tells him that spider venom is responsible, a claim he meets with disbelief. At Colby's farm, his wife Birch finds the family dog dead the same way, and Colby leads the two of them to a back field covered with tarantulas. Ashley's theory is that years of pesticide spraying have wiped out the spiders' ordinary prey, so they mass together and take bigger animals. A bull bursts from a barn crawling with them, and she warns that humans are likely next.
Cast
- Joe Rossas Vern Johnson
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Kingdom of the Spiders (1977)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Kingdom of the Spiders really used 5,000 live tarantulas, bought from Mexican spider wranglers at US$10 each; the spiders alone cost $50,000 of the film's $500,000 budget, with rubber models also used.
- Because tarantulas eat each other, all 5,000 live spiders had to be kept warm and in separate containers, one of several unusual difficulties the huge number of spiders caused during production.
- The worst injury most of the actors suffered while making Kingdom of the Spiders was troublesome itching, caused by the tarantulas shedding their bristles.
