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The Los Angeles Times calls it "scary" and The Hollywood Reporter says it is "repulsively convincing." A toxic spill turns ants into
"rampaging, radioactive, reprobates!" Joan Collins is a land developer who,
along with her clients are "horrified to realize that the ants are having a
picnic...and humans are on the menu!" They flee and soon discover that the
ants wants to build "an evil empire where humans check in...but they can't
check out!" Leonard Maltin is also attributed as saying something utterly
pointless about this movie. Will someone please tell me who in tarnation this
Leonard dude is? 1977, 90 minutes, Widescreen DVD
It's been years since I've seen Them!, the giant ant movie of the fifties, but
even though my memory of that film is fairly dim (ants running around in the
desert and the sewers of El-Lay - or is that about a movie about giant
alligators I'm thinking of?), I seem to recall that it was a better effort in
the oversized ant genre than this version of H.G. Wells novel. I have cable
TV, so obviously I have never read the H.G. Wells novel, but I refuse to
believe that when he wrote it, he envisioned Joan Collins in the role of a
sleazy realtor trying to sell bogus swamp land to unsuspecting marks. When I
was watching it, I was envisioning her in a role more similar to the one she
played in the classic epic The Bitch, but instead we were destined to only see
her cavort around a swamp in these ugly pantaloons or skorts or whatever those
ugly Frankenstein creations that exist as an unholy cross between shorts and
skirts are called. Actually, Joan got off pretty easy compared to the rest of
the cast of this disco-outfitted group, populated by powder blue leisure suits
and boots tucked into ugly brown slacks. Where is Edith Head when you need
her? Things begin ominously enough when this unseen narrator starts droning
on about how cool ants are and how they can do all this great stuff like push
aphids around and dig up dirt between the cracks of sidewalks (yawn) and also
about this super sweet gimmick they have where they spray pheromones on people
to make them do their bidding ("They must obey!"). Sensing an opportunity to
turn this dopey giant bug movie into a learning experience, I hit the world
wide web before our government shuts it down to find out if pheromones could
really cause giant ants to take over the world (I had my doubts, you
understand). Well, it looks like they use this stuff to communicate with each
other about stuff like dangers, sex, and location of the right ant hill. I
also made the mistake looking into our own use of pheromones and found out that
it is thought pheromones released from the armpits may cause women living
together to have "synchronous menstrual cycles." Whoa, thanks for sharing!
Let see those ants beat that!  My curiosity about pheromones having been forever satisfied, I quickly
returned to the film and settled in for 90 minutes of loser humans getting
eaten by loser giant ants. Joan Collins is Marilyn, a chick who is trying to
trick people into buying worthless swamp land for some paradise community with
the prissy sounding name of Dreamland Shores. She's not a terribly bright
businesswoman though, because she gives out all this free food and booze and
boat rides which seems to attract a certain type of clientele. The kind of
prospective customer who only has the money for free food, booze, and boat
cruises. She has some stud on retainer named Charlie that she pushes around as
well as the gruff captain named Dan Stokely. If Dan Stokely looks a bit
familiar to you giant bug aficionados out there, it's because after he got
done fending off giant ants, he battled an island of killer cockroaches in The Nest (a movie I just saw again recently and would probably give the nod to over
this one in head to head competition, but only because lots of roaches are more
yucky that really fake looking giant ants). Captain Dan scowls a lot, which is
probably owed to the awful denim outfit he was forced to wear as much as
anything else. The passengers all show up at the dock and we are given about
45 seconds with each one to kind of set up their character. There's an
old couple where the husband is a real tightwad and keeps track of every little
expense. There's another old couple who only show up for the free food, booze,
and
boat trip. There's the middle aged woman who just got fired from her job and
is looking to start her own business (in a community that hasn't even been
built yet?). There's the young, cool guy whose personal life is in a shambles
and I don't know why he's there except that Captain Dan Stokely is way too old
to carry the picture by himself. Then there is the couple that pretty much
hate each other and the husband whines about her Daddy and his money all the
time (dude, you only whine if her Daddy doesn't have money). The husband's
name is Larry, but every single one of you will recognize him as Ponch's and
Jon's boss from CHiPS, Sgt. Getraer! Yep, that's professional television series guest star Robert
Pine playing the scummy husband that we can't wait to see become ant poop!  Before we get to Dreamland Shores with this stellar collection of humanity, we
get to see some mysterious stuff going on off shore. There's this boat and its
being operated by guys in red hazardous materials suits and they keep dumping
all these poorly-sealed barrels of stuff marked in big red letters
"Radioactive" and "Do not feed to ants" into the sea. At least one of these
barrels washes up on some part of what will never become Dreamland Shores and
starts leaking this shiny silver liquid that looks like the kind of
spray paint this guy in my town sniffs all the time. Naturally, this toxic
waste
is sugar flavored or something because the ants immediately run over there and
drink the stuff up. I don't know why this didn't affect other bugs, wildlife,
or fish or something, but I don't suppose the budget included enough cash for a
scene of a giant pelican trying to peck Robert Pine's eyes out (but we all wish
it did). Okay, now that we've established in a fairly unrealistic and
half-assed way why Dreamland Shores is inhabited by mutant ants, we can get on
with getting these people out to this island or whatever it is. I should also
point out that Robert Pine's character immediately hits on the young single
woman whose story is that she just dumped a married man. Keep in mind that
this was the mid 70s, so hitting on her meant that he was holding her against
her will and trying to rip off her blouse, while the rest of the crew was about
fifty yards away knocking back free bottles of Miller High Life. Eventually
she knees him in the nuts and goes on about her business, apparently figuring
that that took care of that, even though she was going out on a boat with this
guy
and stuff. Once out at Dreamland Shores, they all hop on a tram that Joan has
rigged up and she gets on board with a megaphone (even though she's speaking to
about eight people). They drive around and she points out all the great
facilities that will be built some time in the future. You would think that if
you're trying to sell plots of land for something like this, you would have
something more than a few roads and a bunch of signs saying stuff like "Future
Tennis Court" and "Future Pool" stuck in the ground. I must not have been the
only one thinking that, because the old couple with the thrifty husband gets
off the tram and looks around at the fire hydrants and the water pipes that are
sticking out of the ground. He pulls them all out of the ground and
triumphantly exclaims that it was all a fraud just like he knew all along.
This is where you get your first ant attack and it's denoted by this high
pitched squeaking that I guess is what really big ants sound like when they're
running amok. I've never stuck my ear down an anthill to try and find out what
their talking sounds like, so I can't say whether that's a bunch of bunk or
not. Another gimmick they use that gets old in a hurry is the ant point of
view shot. This is characterized by a bunch of honeycombed shots of the action
from the ant's perspective. Doesn't work, just makes me dizzy, so drop it. Joan and the rest of the people on the tram go off and don't realize the old
couple is missing until later. How could they all forget these two? There's
less than ten people on this stupid island! The best part is that they don't
even bother to turn around and try and find them, they just keep going! Later,
they see some dead workers and notice that there's suspicious looking giant
ants lumbering around the island. They run down to where the boat is and see
the ants attacking the boat. There are some pretty bad special effects used
throughout the film, but they actually go above and beyond the usual by having
two different types of really bad special effects. First they use the tried
and true technique of superimposing regular ants onto the action so that there
are scenes where it looks like the characters are swinging oars at an ant that
is walking around on a piece of glass and the perspective and depth are all
wrong. Then you get the scenes where they went down into their mom's basement
and made a bunch of big ant heads, arms, and bodies and had people off camera
shove these ridiculous looking things at the actors, while the actors would
writhe around like they had a really bad case of jock itch. Okay, so Captain
Dan jumps into the water and swims out to save his boat which was amazing when
you consider the quantity of denim that he was wearing. He ends up taking an
ax to some of the ants and eventually gets his boat blown up for his trouble.
He swims back and suggests that perhaps they should find alternative
transportation back to the mainland. The characters huddle next to a fire and
whine a while before they get rained on and decide to head into the woods (ants
don't like the woods, you know). The other old couple bites the dust about
this time when they break off from the others and decide to hole up in a house
right next to a bunch of giant ants. The next to go is Joan Collins stud
Charlie, who doesn't make it out of the woods, but saves Joan. Then we lose
Robert Pine's wife in a classic scene where she's screaming for him to help
her, but he just stands and watches while she gets punked by all these ants.
Then he finally runs away! Seven Mary Three! Seven Mary Three! Officer in
need of assistance! They all meet up at this boat and get in and sail away
down the river. Here, Robert Pine and the woman he tried to rape, bicker a bit
and Robert insists there was nothing he could have done to save his wife (memo
to Robert's conscience: thanks for finally making the trip!). The ants attack
at some point and drag Robert into the water and kill him. Maybe they can get
Bruce Jenner to take over his role.  Eventually they get rescued by the sheriff of some small, sinister town. As
he's driving them back to town, they pass by the really big sugar processing
plant, but that probably has nothing to do with anything. Now, once in town,
they try and call Joe's (the young cool guy) pal in the state's attorney's
office (What's he going to do? Sue the ants?) but can't get a long distance
call out. It becomes apparent when no one will rent Captain Dan and Joe a car
that this town is up to no good, so Captain Dan and the rest hot-wire a car and
try and run a roadblock but end up in the drink. They get captured by the
sheriff and are hauled off to the sugar refinery where the shocking secret of
the town is revealed! The queen ant is housed in a special plexiglass chamber
and all the townspeople are brought in once a week to her so that she can fart
in their faces
with her pheromones (So that's why they brought it up at the beginning!)
and make them her slaves! How dastardly is all that? How dumb is all that?
Joan gets farted on, but Captain Dan has smuggled a road flare in his drawers
and sets it off and waves it at the face of that mean old queen and he busts
out and there's this big truck full of gasoline parked outside the plant like
there usually is in movies like this. Joe opens up the valves, drives the
truck into the plant, bails out with a pretty good stunt roll, and everything
blows up. All the good guys make it to a boat and sail off into a freeze frame
finish. It is obvious that this is a fairly stupid film, but I wasn't too
irritated with it until the last third when all this blah blah about the town
showed up. How can a town be so isolated that someone wouldn't notice that it
was being controlled by gigantic ants? I didn't mind when I was watching
people trying to survive in the wild against these things, but then I'm
supposed to believe that somehow or other the queen ant could tell somebody not
to rent a car to Captain Dan or let Joe use 1-800 COLLECT? At some point in
the giant bug movie scheme of things you have to acknowledge that they are
still just stupid little bugs that have gone on creatine or something and that
they have not been turned into someone like Ernst Stavro
Blofeld with schemes for world
domination. The other major problem with this movie is all these worthless
people that take this boat ride in the first place. By having that many, you
can't focus on any of them for very long and have to resort to the three
sentence explanation for their characters that they all got. The other thing
is that all these people are crabby jerks. I was thinking that the world would
be better off if these vapid, self-absorbed boobs were chomped by the ants.
But you don't have to believe me when I tell you that the movie is pure dross.
Just look at the credits and note the prevalence of a single name: Bert I.
Gordon.
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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