There might come a time when he's treading on you…
Adam Ant, Antmusic (1980)
This film has a lowly 5% on Rotten Tomatoes and whilst I had no idea that the ratings could go so low, I don’t think that’s in anyway a fair reflection of its merits. Empire of the Ants is the third and last film released in American International Pictures's H.G. Wells film series, after The Food of the Gods (1976) and The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977) the first two of which were directed by the remarkable Bert I. Gordon. Gordon also co-wrote an managed the whole process in the manner of a true auteur as Kim Newman says in his career overview in the extras. “Mr B.I.G.” as he was known and naturally initialled, was a master of every part of film making from editing, cinematography to the special effects upon which so many relied.
His work in the science fiction/horror exploitation genre went back to the early 1950s and his last credit was in 2015’s Secrets of a Psychopath, made when he was 93 and still full of the passion and energy that would see him beyond his 100th birthday. It’s fine for some to lump him in with Ed Wood and other low budget dreamers but he was clearly a master of his craft and, on the evidence of this film you can see that despite the limitations of budget. As Chris Cooke says in his introduction, Gordon proved that size does indeed matter and his track record is indeed a large one when it comes to thrillers involving relative dimensions directing such hits as The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), it’s follow-up, War of the Colossal Beast (1958), Village of the Giants (1965) and King Dinosaur (1954) not to mention the other Wells film featuring gigantic rats and hens.
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| Joan Collins in sales mode for Dreamland Shores |
His mastery of double exposure often looks better on the
cinema screen as its only preparing film for the small screen that has made the
elements of the technique more visible with, as here, the odd ant crawling
apparently on thin air although the remastering here is as impeccable as Gordon
himself when preparing filmic elements for projection in the pre-digital age.
Here the mix of photo-enlarged real ants and larger scale rubber replicants,
works well if you suspend disbelief and go with the flow – for those of us born
before CGI this is not so hard. As with so many eco-horrors of the seventies “disaster
movie” craze, physical props had to be used and the actors had to do their best
to make their threat real in the deadliest moments of which there are quite a
few.
In terms of the source material, HG Wells short story
from 1907 was more about the threat of organised ants of regular size and in
the opening section we see ants organising their culture using pheromones and a
collective intelligence that is remarkable for any of the 15,000 different
species on Earth. Wells just went with that but Gordan has a nuclear spillage following
illegal dumping, irradiating the creatures and making them grow to giant size.
This was a familiar trope as Newman points out with the same thing happening to
Colossal Beast in 1958 and from there to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s The
Incredible Hulk in the Marvel comic starting in 1962.
Having established the threat it’s time to turn to the
real monsters of the piece; the people and especially ruthless real estate developer
Marilyn Fryser (a marvellously bossy Joan Collins) who is busy lining up a
group of punters for a trip to view the potential of her new integrated community at Dreamland Shores, miles from anywhere, on polluted land and with only the pretence of the groundwork having been done. There's a hilarious sign point to the "Future Gold Course", "Future Marina"and "Future Pool Area" and essentially this is a money grabbing exercise for which Marilyn's head of sales, Charlie (Edward Power) admits only a third of the day trippers will invest in, the rest are just there for the free ride. Sadly for them, today there's a huge price to pay...
The group on the boat to nowhere are the usual mix for this period of cowardly sexist husband with a wandering eye, Robert Pine (Larry Graham) and his long-suffering wife Christine (Brooke Palance) who has to face the indignity of his staring at the winsome singleton Coreen (Pamela Shoop) although she doesn’t see his attempt to sexually assault her shortly into the day – she knees him where it hurts much to the cheers of my watching crowd.
There’s a guy on the down, divorced and drinking Joe Morrison (John David Carson) who we hope can be redeemed as well as the disappointed middle-aged Margaret (Jacqueline Scott) who starts to warm up the weathered and worn down boat owner Dan Stokely (Robert Lansing) who takes Marilyn’s money even though he dislikes her and the whole phoney project. There are two pairs of older couples too, one a pair of professional freeloaders and the others too curious for their own good although it’s hardly their fault when they become the first to be killed by the giant ants.
As with all such creature features, there’s an initial period in which the party doesn’t understand the danger the audience knows full well they are in but soon the ants are everywhere and it’s a race into the everglades to find escape after the clever insects have removed the boat, their only means of escape. As the group runs through the dense woods, Gordon capture the action really well and even throws in some horrible jump scares as man proves no match for mandible as heroes arise, cowards are found out and everyday worries are put into sharp relief by the life and death struggle.
The narrative builds as the survivors realise they are being herded and that there’s more to these ants than meets the mind, with the opening segment, voiced by Marvin Miller, explains the remarkable capacity of ant communities to act collectively and intelligently… That was Wells warning, that we might be outsmarted by a seemingly humble but organised creature and it was also a call for humanity to think harder.
That much is implicit in Gordon’s film but very much secondary to the entertaining personal journeys and the fight to live!
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| Pamela Shoop, John David Carson and Jacqueline Scott |
Special effects, giant ants and, of course, there are some massive Special Features:
Limited Edition of 2,000 copies featuring O-card slipcase with original poster artwork and booklet featuring new writing on Empire of the Ants and ecological horror by genre film expert Liam Hathaway
1080p HD presentation on Blu-ray
New introduction to Empire of the Ants by Chris Cooke, filmmaker and co-director of Mayhem Film Festival
The B.I.G. Picture – interview with film historian Kim Newman focused on the life and career of cult filmmaker Bert I. Gordon
Audio commentary by writer, director and
producer Bert I. Gordon himself!
Audio commentary by film historian David Del Valle with film historian and filmmaker Michael Varrati
It’s the very definition of pulp and B.I.G. should be far from notorious for his skills in making such an enjoyable piece of nonsense on a budget and on location! You can pre-order direct from the Eureka website and watch out for those six-legged insects at this time of year, they’ll do anything for sugar…
