Talk:Kingdom of the Spiders

== Influences ==

Kingdom of the Spiders was one of several horror and science fiction films of the 1970s that reflected a growing sentiment of environmentalism in North America, such as Day of the Animals, Night of the Lepus, Killer Bees, Frogs and Silent Running. It also reflected a horror trend that suggested that mankind's worst enemy was not supernatural monsters, but creatures already present in nature, as seen in Jaws and the numerous copycat films that arrived in its wake, as well as Alfred Hitchcock's classic The Birds.

A particular parallel to Jaws is that, in both films, local civic officials are more concerned with making money from tourism than with properly dealing with a very serious environmental problem. In both films, these decisions lead to unsuccessful attempts to eradicate the creatures, ultimately with horrific consequences.

Due to the film's low budget, most of the music used in the film (particularly the "startle cues") was taken from the logs of stock music used on suspense TV series. For example, most of the music used in the film during the scenes with the spiders can also be heard in notable episodes of The Twilight Zone, including "To Serve Man" and "The Invaders", as well as in at least one episode of The Fugitive. The country music songs heard on the radio in the movie, as well as over the opening and closing credits, were performed by country singer Dorsey Burnette.

* At the time of filming, Shatner was married to Marcy Lafferty, who plays Shatner's character's sister-in-law in the movie. The couple has since divorced. Altovise Davis, who plays Birch Colby, was the wife of Sammy Davis Jr.

• Woody Strode, who plays Walter Colby, was probably best known to film audiences for his role in the Lee Marvin/Burt Lancaster Western film The Professionals. Sports historians know Strode as one of the first two African-American football players to break the National Football League's color barrier in the 1940s, when he joined the Los Angeles Rams.
• The film was nominated for the Best Horror Film award by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, but lost to The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane, which starred a young Jodie Foster. At the awards ceremony (which was broadcast in TV syndication), Shatner performed one of his noted spoken-word versions of a pop song, in this case Elton John's "Rocket Man". Footage of this performance was featured in the Comedy Central Roast of Shatner.
• Two people involved in the film's production went on to win Oscars. Ve Neill, a makeup artist on the movie, won shared Oscars for her work on Mrs. Doubtfire and Ed Wood. Steven Zaillian, a co-editor on the film, won for his screenwriting of Steven Spielberg's film Schindler's List.

• According to Cardos, several actresses were considered for the role of Diane Ashley but were rejected when they showed apprehension towards handling live tarantulas. (Cardos kept two of the hairy spiders in a terrarium on his desk while meeting with actresses to gauge their reaction). However, two of those who were rejected, Barbara Hale and Donna Mills, appeared in other "killer spider" pictures: Hale in The Giant Spider Invasion and Mills in the made-for-TV Curse of the Black Widow, though in neither of these films did the aforementioned actresses work as closely with the spiders as they would have in Kingdom of the Spiders.