the boards from one of the lodge's windows, and discovers the building, along with the entire town of Camp Verde, encased in spider silk cocoons. Cast William Shatner as Rack Hansen Natasha Ryan as Linda Hansen Marcy Lafferty as Terry Hansen Tiffany Bolling as Diane Ashley Woody Strode as Walter Colby Altovise Davis as Birch Colby Lieux Dressler as Emma Washburn David McLean as Gene Smith Joe Ross as Vern Johnson Adele Malis-Morey as Betty Johnson Roy Engel as Mayor Connors Production Kantor told Fangoria magazine in 1998 that the film did indeed use 5,000 of the large, hairy spiders, though a number of rubber model spiders were also used during production. The live tarantulas were procured by offering Mexican spider wranglers US$10 for each live tarantula they could find; this meant that $50,000 of the film's $500,000 budget went towards the purchase of spiders. The large number of tarantulas kept on hand led to some unusual production difficulties. Not only did each spider have to be kept warm, but because of the creatures' cannibalistic tendencies, all 5,000 spiders had to be kept in separate containers. Additionally, tarantulas are usually shy around people, so fans and air tubes often had to be used to get the spiders to move toward their "victims". Indeed, in a number of the scenes where the tarantulas are "attacking" people, it is obvious to the viewer that the spiders are merely moving around, usually away from their intended victims. Contrary to popular belief, the venom of most tarantulas is not dangerous to humans, causing no more harm than a bee sting (unless the person is allergic to the venom). The worst injury most of the actors suffered was troublesome itching caused by the spiders shedding their bristles (Tarantula urticating bristles have been used to make itching powder sold in joke and novelty stores). Sequel Rumors have occasionally surfaced that a sequel to Kingdom of the Spiders was in production; however, no such film has yet been made. Shatner told Fangoria in 1998 that he was working with Cannon Films in the late 1980s to produce a sequel, titled simply Kingdom of the Spiders 2. The actor claimed that he supplied the film's premise, which would have featured a man being tortured by his enemies, preying upon his intense fear of spiders, to get him to reveal a secret. Cannon went so far as to take