Ants! (1977)
We meet every main characters in Ants! within the first five minutes of the film. There’s the shiesty real estate mogul and his secretary who have arrived in town, scouting locations for their next casino. There’s the elderly owner of Lakewood Manor and her daughter, who disagree on whether or not they should sell the lakeside hotel. There’s the hunka-hunka handyman who by chance meets a drifting blonde bombshell. And finally, there’s the construction crew working next to the hotel who just so happen to uncover a hoard of killer ants.
If you’re imagining giant ants like the ones from Them!, think again. These killer ants look like plain ‘ol, regular-sized ants. In fact, it’s eventually explained that ants aren’t aggressive at all, and will only attack people who invade their space. Fortunately for us, a few people do — a contruction worker, a curious child, and a kitchen chef all find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Representatives from the State Department of Health (but not the police) arrive to investigate the mysterious deaths, but no one can figure out what’s causing them (apparently, killer ants don’t leave bite marks). Even when one of the construction workers is bitten (but survives), the state department employees refuse to believe him and instead insist they’re dealing with a virus.
By the time the truth is revealed, it’s too late. Every character we met in the first five minutes of the film finds his or herself trapped in the motel, surrounded by ants. Again, these appear to be normal ants, just with poisonous bites. Any human being could out-walk one, or step over them. The only possible way to get trapped by the ants would be to retreat to a hotel with only one entrance and then allow them to surround and infiltrate the building, which is exactly what happens.
Unlike the crews from Jaws (who had to deal with a mostly non-functioning shark) or Jurassic Park (which sprayed down their life-size T-Rex only to discover it didn’t function well when wet), as far as I can tell, Ants! used honest-to-goodness real ants. Sure, there’s plenty of stock footage and some fake ants in the background, but there are plenty of scenes in which it appears right before the director yelled “action,” someone dumped live ants all over the actors.
Before the end of the film, a helicopter, a moat of fire, and rolls of wallpaper are used to defeat the ants. Along the way, in a single and somber piece of exposition, a scientist tells the audience that we’ve been using poison against insects for many years, and it appears they’re figured out a way to turn it against us.
Snort.
I thought this film felt like a made for television movie, and later learned that it was. Originally titled It Happened at Lakewood Manor, the movie was renamed Ants for its 2014 release on DVD. The movie contained a star-studded cast, including Robert Foxworth, Lynda Day George, Gerald Gordon, Myrna Loy, Suzanne Somers, Bernie Casey,
Barry Van Dyke, and Brian Dennehy as the Fire Chief. While Ants! is a better name for the film, it’s not a great movie no matter what you call it. Slow pacing and a pretty avoidable insect make the stakes on this one pretty low.
Tags: halloween2020, horror