The B.I.G. Bugs of "Empire of the Ants"

Bert I. Gordon isn't known as Mr. B.I.G. just because of his initials. This low-budget director established his reputation by specializing in movies about giant people (Village of the Giants), big rats (Food of the Gods), and over-sized spiders (The Spider). But today, we are focusing on ginormous ants, which are on prominent display in Gordon's 1977 cult opus Empire of the Ants.

Let me be clear that we're not talking about Them-sized ants nor a movie that can be compared in any way to that 1954 sci fi classic. Still, this is the kind of movie I would have watched at a movie theater as a college student in 1977. To my credit, I did see Food of the Gods, but, hey, it had Marjoe Gortner and Ida Lupino fighting the kind of people-eating rats that would put Willard and Ben to shame. Yet, somehow I missed Empire of the Ants on its original release and never caught it on television.

Jacqueline Scott and Robert Lansing.

Thus, I was pleased to find it on the movie schedule at the 2016 Williamsburg Film Festival. Even better, the showing included an introduction by Jacqueline Scott, who co-starred with Joan Collins and a bearded, almost unrecognizable Robert Lansing (who, of course, could still be identified because of his distinctive eyes...which really deserved to be the subject of a pop song).

Jacqueline Scott introduced Empire of the Ants by telling a funny story about Joan Collins crying over something in her trailer. Jacqueline overheard it, walked over to Robert Lansing's dressing room, and suggested that maybe he check on Joan. Lansing disappeared for a moment. He reappeared and handed Jacqueline a box of candy. "Give this to her," he said...and closed his trailer door.

Joan Collins looking very 1970s-ish.

Joan stars in Empire of the Ants as a real estate developer trying to induce unsuspecting folks into buying a lot in Dreamland Shores, which is apparently located in isolated Florida "swamp land." She takes her potential clients on a tour of the properties--completely unaware that nearby ants are munching on radioactive waste that has washed ashore.

Before long, giant ants (I'd estimate them at five feet in height) are eliminating extraneous characters like the elderly couple and the coward who left his wife behind during a bug attack. But the ants don't kill everyone and Robert Lansing, who pays the boat captain, wryly observes: "My god, they're herding us like cattle."

A giant ant confronts Joan.

Sure enough, the final third of Empire of the Ants evolves from a big bug movie into a variation of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. It was an unexpected plot development and, for that reason alone, I'd classify Empire of the Ants as one of Bert I. Gordon's best movies (that's not saying a whole lot...but, honestly, it was kinda interesting).

The screenplay was loosely based on a 1905 short story by H. G. Wells. In Wells' tale, a gunboat captain discovers species of large (but only five centimeters), intelligent ants in the Amazon. He tries to destroy them, but fails. At the end of the story, the narrator speculates that the ants will reach Europe by 1950 or 1960.

Bert I. Gordon's Empire of the Ants was one of many later 1970s movies about nature taking revenge on humankind. Other films in this mini-genre included Grizzly, Day of the Animals, Squirm, and--the best of the bunch--John Frankenheimer's Prophecy.

Of course, Empire of the Ants had one thing none of these other movies had. It has an ant coordinator. Really. I saw it in the closing credits!

Insects in Classic Movies

A giant ant in Them!

Be they little specks or large enough to crush a man, insects have long been a big screen pest. A plague of locusts stripped the wheat fields in the climax to The Good Earth (an effect achieved by superimposing coffee grounds over oil-covered wheat). An army of soldier ants destroyed a South American plantation in 1954’s The Naked Jungle, although the crisis served to mend Charlton Heston and Eleanor Parker’s shaky marriage.

That same year introduced a colony of 12-foot-high ants in Them!, the finest giant insect picture ever made. It was also the first to imply that nature was rebelling against man’s misuse of radiation. Imitations quickly followed, featuring giant grasshoppers (The Beginning of the End) and a preying mantis (The Deadly Mantis).

A publicity still from
Return of the Fly.

A single, regular-sized fly proved the culprit in 1958’s The Fly when it interrupted an experiment and merged atomic particles with an affable scientist. Nine years later, The Deadly Bees started an insect film subgenre with its lively shock scenes of swarming bees stinging nice people to death. The number of bee films increased over the next decade, amid real-life reports of killer bees flying up from South America. A popular TV-movie, The Savage Bees, was followed by The Bees, Irwin Allen’s big-budget bust The Swarm, and Terror Out of the Sky.

While bees have been portrayed as dangerous killers, filmmakers have taken a more lenient view of ants. Certainly, the destructive side of ants was displayed in The Naked Jungle, It Happened at Lakewood Manor, Empire of the Ants, and Legion of Fire: Killer Ants. But there have also been cute computer-animated ants (A Bug’s Life and Antz) and intelligent ants seeking to breed humans to create a new super race in Phase IV.

Disney's famous cricket.

In other notable insect-related features: The Devil (Peter Cook) turned Dudley Moore into a fly in one of the episodes of Bedazzled; the Academy Award-winning pseudo-documentary The Hellstrom Chronicle explored the premise that insects will inherit the Earth one day; a government device designed to kill insects raised dead humans in Don’t Open the Window and turned them into flesh-eating ghouls; the moon’s inhabitants were discovered to be the insect-like Selenites in First Men in the Moon; and a nice wholesome family turned out to be roaches in disguise in Meet The Applegates. Burgess Meredith provided the voice for a talking horsefly in Hot to Trot (1988).

The best six-legged singing insect was undoubtedly Jiminy Cricket of Pinocchio fame. Below is a representative sample of pre-2000 films with prominent roles for insects:

The Good Earth (1937)
Pinocchio (1940)
Hoppity Goes to Town (aka Mr. Bug Goes to Town) (1941)
Once Upon a Time (1944)
Them! (1954)
The Naked Jungle (1954)
The Deadly Mantis (1957)
The Cosmic Monster (aka The Strange World of Planet X) (1957)
Secrets of Life (1957)
The Beginning of the End (1957)
The Fly (1958)
The Wasp Woman (1960)
Mysterious Island (1961)
First Men in the Moon (1964)
The Deadly Bees (1967)
Bedazzled (1967)
The Hellstrom Chronicle (1971)
The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
Invasion of the Bee Girls (1973)
Phase IV (1974)
Don’t Open the Window (aka Breakfast at the Manchester Morgue) (1974)
Killer Bees (1974 TV movie)
Locusts (1974 TVM)
Bug (1975)
The Savage Bees (1976 TVM)
Empire of the Ants (1977)
Damnation Alley (1977)
Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977)
It Happened at Lakewood Manor (aka Panic at Lakewood Manor; Ants) (1977 TVM)
The Exorcist II:  The Heretic (1977)
Terror Out of the Sky (1978 TVM)
The Bees (1978)
The Swarm (1978)
The Beast Within (1982)
Creepshow (1982)
Phenomenon (aka Creepers) (1985)
The Nest (1988)
Hot to Trot (1988)
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989)
Meet The Applegates (aka The Applegates) (1990)
Whispers (1990)
Popcorn (1991)  (the movie-within-a-movie “Mosquito”)
Naked Lunch (1991)
Matinee (1993)  (the movie-within-a-movie “Mant!”)
Skeeter (1994)
Ticks (1994)
Jumanji (1995)
Jonny Quest vs. the Cyber Insects (1995 TVM)
Angels and Insects (1996)
James and the Giant Peach (1996)
Microcosmos (1996)
Joe's Apartment (1996)
Ulee’s Gold (1997)
Mimic (1997)
Starship Troopers (1997)
Legion of Fire: Killer Ants (1998 TVM)
Antz (1998)
A Bug’s Life (1998)

Reprinted with the authors' permission from the Encyclopedia of Film Themes, Settings and Series.