The Deadly Mantis (1957)

Powerful

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The old scientist professor also played Applegate in the Hardy Boys Mickey Mouse Club series "The Mystery of the Applegate Treasure" or The Tower Treasure as it is sometimes called. "Gold doubloons and pieces of eight handed down to Applegate..." narrated by Tony the Tiger's voice in the opening clip.The fleeing native northern folk are taken from S.O.S. Eisberg (1933) or Iceberg in the American version. This had a rare film starring role appearance by Leni Riefenstahl, who went on to film "Triumph of the Will". That film documented a famous party rally in Nuremberg. She spent the rest of her life trying to regain some control over the film rights after the defeat of Germany in 1945.An aside -- The various DEW lines could end up like ringing the dinner bell for alien races. The carrier wave would be detected really far away, and it would change on a regular 24 hour cycle. So it is real evidence of intelligent life. That is not part of the movie plot.

Yep so 1957 was most definitely the year of the big bug thriller movie, talk about over kill! After the huge success of 'Them!' in 1954 the genre was alive and kicking followed closely by the excellent 'Tarantula' in 1955. Since that explosion of insectoid goodness, studios at the time were systematically going through every known bug they could to make a horror sci-fi. Any bug that could be transformed into a huge slimy, fanged beastie was slapped up on the screen.This third movie from the era (I think third?), as you can clearly tell, is all about the exploits of a giant Praying Mantis, cos they look scary right! A volcano erupts (as they frequently do in these films) which in turn causes the Polar region to shift and break apart, which in turn releases a giant Mantis that had been trapped in the ice for millions of years. Cue the Mantis running around and eating lots of stereotypical military types until it can be trapped and killed with extreme, yet polite, prejudice.Now, far be it for me to take the p*ss too much, but...holy tentacles this was a fun flick! Yes that's right, you thought I was gonna sh*t all over it didn't you, well hold on. OK so the plot is ridiculous and virtually a carbon copy of every other big bug movie ever made. A natural disaster releases the monster bug or its the result of some kind of experiment, either or. From there on its the simple process of watching a predictable trio of, a good looking bloke, an attractive female and an old intelligent scientist type, discussing tactics to destroy the bug whilst others get eaten. Then eventually they manage to succeed but not before many innocent faceless people have perished, everyone's a winner.The film initially starts out like a documentary for schools or some kind of news reel. It goes on for for at least 5/6 minutes about the military and how they are building this base in northern Canada with all these early warning barriers that cross the entire country. Its all your typical Cold war malarkey, in case the Ruskies attack via the Poles. But this intro goes on and on, I started to wonder if I had the right thing playing. Anyway the big question is of course how the hell did a giant Mantis get trapped in ice (or whatever it was before it was ice), at the Poles (where ever it was before it was the Poles), and manage to survive for millions of years. Although, I guess a bigger question would be, how the hell did a Mantis get to be giant in the first place.The main attraction of this movie is of course the giant Mantis and the way the effects team created it. Overall its a bloody good rubber bug puppet and model combination, it actually looks like a genuinely real Mantis of epic proportions with all the correct details and shape. More importantly it looks quite scary and intimidating, it does actually lend some genuine scary atmosphere to the proceedings when it lurks in the background. A lot of that is down to the correct shape of the insect with its long, thin, pointy, jagged, sharp looking legs, the eerie sound it makes, and those two big silver emotionless eyes. The short sequences of the bug flying are also well realised, the only downside with this, and much like all giant bug movies, the bug roars like a flippin' dinosaur, or Godzilla. The best sequence on show has to be the quick scene where the Mantis climbs up the Washington Monument, that actually looks really good all things considered.The movie takes on a very King Kong-esque approach as the Mantis eventually makes it way to New York, after fighting off some jet fighters along the way (ahem! copyright). To avoid a complete rip- off the big bug ends up crawling into the Manhattan Tunnel to recover, this in fact leads to a sequence where a group of blokes go in after the bug all dressed up in biohazard type suits. This one scene actually reminded me of many modern sci-fi movies. A group of characters all suited up in special outfits, creeping down a dark space with flashlights, all culminating in the heroic final group pose shot when they find the creature. This whole sequence was probably the slickest in the movie and gave it some real gravitas. Alas the ending lets everything down with such a weak clichéd display of male chauvinism as the male lead virtually bullies the female into kissing him...right next to the huge dead bug. Its like they just killed it, and that turned them on (or him), sadistic tendencies.As always plenty of good and bad to be found, the small Eskimo village sequence is probably the daftest and most amusing. And I still can't work out how no one thinks to shoot this thing in the eyes, it has two huge silver eyes, shoot those surely, pretty sure that would stop it straight away. Anyway despite the odd little expected flaws this is still a solid bug flick and easily one of the best in my opinion.7.5/10

A giant prehistoric praying mantis, recently freed from the Arctic ice, voraciously preys on American military at the Dew Line and works its way south.This film is just bad. I like the map in the beginning, but after that it gets cheesy. Why is there a giant praying mantis? I mean, you know, just one? And why is it at the North Pole? And why did they steal footage from "S.O.S. Eisberg" (1933) to show Eskimos fleeing? If you like seeing a big bug fly across the sky for 80 minutes, this is your film. But, for me, it just was not as good as many of the other big animal pictures out there... it was not menacing, and really made no sense. The scientific attempt to explain it? Non-existent!

Universal was known to milk its formulas dry and, so, we had this middling return to TARANTULA (1955) territory – itself inspired by the superior THEM! (1954); in all fairness to them, other studios also contributed to what came to be known as 'atomic monster' cycle – such as Allied Artists' ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS, Warners' THE BLACK SCORPION and United Artists' THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD; coincidentally, all three were released the same year as the film under review and I guess I should mention that the first and third will also be included in this year's Halloween challenge. Anyway, this is yet another William Alland production and, as was his fashion, gives a documentary feel to the proceedings; alas, this only resulted in a deadly {sic} first half – especially since there was no one among the bland (and anonymous) principals with whom to empathize...and, what is even worse, the obligatory love interest feels particularly intrusive here! However, once the creature turns up, it becomes your standard 'bug' movie with much the expected mayhem and thrills and, therefore, fairly entertaining if hardly surprising (down to the climax where the mantis is cornered inside a tunnel). It is a big plus, then, that the design of the monster here is pretty good – looking appropriately menacing in close-up. By the way, this is another title issued by Universal in their second DVD set of Sci-Fi 'Classics' and one that I opted to acquire through ulterior sources (in fact, the copy I ended up with did not even seem to be culled from this latest edition – unlike CULT OF THE COBRA {1955; another upcoming viewing}, THE LAND UNKNOWN {1957} and THE LEECH WOMAN {1960}).