Empire of the Ants

* / *****
Bert I Gordon is in 1977. He has seen the Great White ride the wave of success as his contemporaries. Why couldn't Bertie ride the same wave, right? He did have Robert Lansing in the lead along with John David Carson as the potential new heartthrob for the movies. Joan Collins had enough credibility and looks, with Pamela Sue Shoop cast as a blond beauty to serve as Carson's love interest.  Pepper the cast with disposable supporting actors that run a diverse Disaster Film age group. Then provide an idyllic enough locale, get the cast to an island for some reason, and unleash some animal / creature on them. Burdened by turning loose giant ants on regular-sized humans was no easy task in 1977, but Bertie was willing to try. And the results? Yikes, it leaves it's cast to try and get over an ongoing plot that ultimately leads to a giant queen ant setting off mind-controlling pheromones, conditioning the island town to bend to her will! Poor Lansing deserved better than this. Hell, Collins deserved better than this! They soldier on, one a cool customer who never allows the threats to undermine his resolve, another who is dedicated to her properties available to a select group willing to pay up until the ants no longer make that possible.

 And why are the damned ants so big? Good ole nuclear waste, dumped into the water, washing ashore for the ants to feed from. Instead of dying, they grow to enormous size, eyeing humans as food fit for consumption. So all of the folks that decided to take a boat ride for a nice, free trip, food, and liquor, instead encounter an island of giant ants wanting to eat them! The effects of us seeing through the eyes of the ants, the mock up of them for up close attacks, and the distance shots where blown up real ants split the screen with the actors  are not exactly state of the art. They will certify notoriety for the film, much in the same way as Food of the Gods (1976) did for Bertie.

Ultimately, there is Airport-stylized Disaster film character interactions as the cast prescribe to the audience their life's woes. Broken marriages, adultery, unemployment, midlife crises, the works. An elderly couple addicted to free rides in their retirement years hide out in a shack, hoping the ants pass them by, leaving it's comforts to surroundings most unkind. Tripping over branches and roots in wilderness retreats from danger aren't reserved for just slasher movies. Too bad for those who do fall as their partners don't have the courage to rescue or help them up! Jack Palance's daughter, Brooke, is married to cheating husband, Robert Pine (CHIPs), falling down...after the night brought on fears of the ants it was her husband who ultimately let's her down. Edward Power goes back for Collins who runs to her properties as the ants emerge. But when he falls down she leaves him to die! Fear does that, but the scenes seem to indicate there is time before the ants get to victims for help to resolve their situation. At least one or two occasions it appears humans could get up in time or have a space of time to escape. These kinds of things drag films down even more than their (un)special effects.

But once Lansing and Carson lead a few left in a boat down a river and meet up with local town sheriff (Albert Salmi), the film really goes off the deep end. Ants behind a town helping them through pheromone mind control and our remaining survivors just trying to keep from being stuffed in a booth to suffer smoky pheromone trances render the film a laughingstock. Assuring us that Collins gets her just desserts, she doesn't escape the booth or pheromones. She doesn't escape the sugar refinery as Lansing, Shoop, Jacqueline Scott (I know her from the Twilight Zone), and Carson (eventually) do. She's just shit outta luck!

Just the heads of fake ants shuffling over folks (handled by hands in the film crew) and Bertie's camera shaking can't outflank our ability to hold a serious face watching it all. It's all too much.

The cast is fun. The film is inescapably bad. And the effects are what they are. The 70s sure gave us so much schlock. So much gold. Poor Lansing, though.