Cultural depictions of spiders the West", and was remade as a 1967 Hong Kong cinema production. Many horror films have featured the spider, including 1955's "Tarantula", exploiting America's fear of atomic radiation during the nuclear arms race, the 1975 low-budget cult film "The Giant Spider Invasion", and "Kingdom of the Spiders", a 1977 film starring William Shatner, depicting the consequence of hungry spiders deprived of their natural food supply due to pesticides. The fear of spiders culminates in "Arachnophobia", a 1990 movie in which spiders multiply in large numbers. On the other hand, a person who admires spiders is referred to as an "arachnophile";
Fear of a Blank Planet not receive a formal release on any of the four records (the "Fear of a Blank Planet" LP, the "Fear of a Blank Planet" single, the "Way Out of Here" single, and the "Nil Recurring" EP) released by Porcupine Tree during this era. With the release of "Insurgentes", Wilson's debut solo album, Wilson would further develop some of the ideas on which "Fear of a Blank Planet" is conceived. The album charted in almost all European countries and entered the U.S. "Billboard" 200 at #59. The album was highly acclaimed by critics and was even awarded the status of "Album