Empire of the Ants (1977)

Truly Dreadful Film

This is How Movies Should Be Made

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This is a very scary movie. It has a great story line. It also has great acting. It also has great special effects. It is scarier then The Exorcist. And that is not easy to do. This is a great movie. I do not know why people give it a 4. It is not a 4. It is a 10. See it. If you like good horror movies you will like this movie. It is very scary. If this movie does not scary you no movie will. Do not watch this movie alone. It is very scary. Great movie great movie great movie. John David Carson was a great actor. This is scarier then A Nightmare on elm street and that is not easy to do.

Stuck for something to help the Yellowtail go down (although it goes down quite well anyway) we selected 'Empire of the Ants' on Amazon. Two things told us it was not going to be a riveting experience: it was made in 1977 and its big star was Joan Collins. Still, we'd paid the not inconsiderable sum of £3.99 and we were going to stick with it. Apparently a spill of nuclear waste has caused ants to grow to alarming proportions, and they get their mandibles stuck into a group of no-hopers, con-men and assorted make-weights as they tour an isolated island looking to buy real estate. It's pretty poor stuff all round, with many of the actors (including Ms Collins) apparently saying whatever the script says without bothering to understand or mean it. We turned to each other as the final credits rolled and uttered words that cannot be used on this fine forum. Be warned. If you want a much, much better giant ant film, the 1950's THEM is the one to beat. I was going to say '...despite the crude effects', but it seems nothing had improved during the 20 years between that film and this one.

Joan Collins stars, surprisingly, as a bitch scam artist ripping people off... when she's not doing that she's starring in films such as this. Lol, I jest of course, she has some excellent films under her belt but I'm afraid this isn't one of them. "Empire of the Ants" is a take on H.G. Wells novel of the same name with a few twists and updates to try and make it appropriate for a film audience. Directed by Bert I. Gordon this film is so silly it hurts, the acting is pretty dire (even you Joan!), the effects are embarrassing as are the ludicrous ants and their pathetic ant-vision. But let's face it, if you've got this you probably aren't expecting a masterpiece, so as far as giant insect attack movies go this isn't the worst film ever - there's even a massive plot twist in the story after Collins' scam artist character and her crew have seemingly escaped. Keep watching, crack open a beer with your friends and laugh at the kitch special effects and the stupid ants and their annoying shrieking/screaming bickering. I award this film 3 out of 10 but that's because I'm feeling generous having just watched "Humans Vs Zombies" - be sure to read my review of that before pressing play on that one.

Bert I. Gordon, who specialized in Sci-Fi exploitation film in the '50's, returns to the genre to direct this adaptation of the H.G. Welles story about giant mutated ants who infest an island in the Florida Everglades that a scam real estate artist(played by a profoundly embarrassed looking Joan Collins) is trying to sell to an unfortunate group of buyers. Even after the survivors escape to a nearby town, they find that it too is part of their empire...You would think that 23 years after the classic film "Them!", improvements to ant F/X would have taken place, but not here, in this utterly inept, shoddily produced and directed farrago, that is, if anything, unintentionally funny, yet still violent. Robert Lansing in particular looks grumpy, and Joan Collins famously trashed this stupid film, which was a weekday afternoon favorite for years!