Empire of the Ants (1977)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Memorable, crazy movie

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

When a ship containing radioactive barrels are dumped into the ocean, trouble begins. The barrels wash ashore, and start to leak. The next day a group of tourists arrive to take a tour to see a new land development. Little do they know that this tour is nothing but a rip-off. The land developer is Marilyn Fryser(Joan Collins). She is nothing more than a snake in the grass. She is nothing but a money grabbing sleaze. The land is nothing but empty promises, filled with fake construction work. Once the group arrives they take a tour of the Island. When couple starts to look around, they are attacked by these huge ants. The group wonder where they could have wondered off to, but nobody knows. So, everyone starts to look around for them. That's when people notice these huge ants, and in order to survive they have to get off the Island. Some soon become prey, while others are able to escape. They find the local sheriff and tell him what is going on. Unknown to the others, he is aware of the problem. When the survivors get to the sugar refinery, they realize what all the secrecy is about. I am surprised by the low rating this movie got. I thought it was kind of cool, but I'm a sucker for movies about radiated bugs. This movie also stars Robert Pine( Chips) and Pamela Shoop( Halloween 2).

The movie starts with radioactive wastes being dumped into the ocean and washed ashore onto the Florida coast. A toxic leak turns simple ants into giant monsters. Unscrupulous real estate agent Marilyn Fryser (Joan Collins) is trying to sell inaccessible coastal swamp land to a boat full of potential suckers. The fake development turns out to the site of the mutant giant ants.This is supposedly based on the H.G. Wells short story. It is a B-movie all the way through. The physical ants are terribly fake. The in-camera special effects are old fashion. The main problem is the lackluster group, both characters and actors. The second tier names aren't rising to the challenge. They are given bad dialogue and the characters are hopelessly unimpressive. They don't even bother picking up a stick to fight back and are always shocked to suddenly see the ants right next to them. They reach civilization and that's when the story gets stupid.

This claims to be based on an H.G. Wells story and without ever having read anything by him, I can safely say it must be very loosely based on something he wrote.The movie starts with b-roll of ants and a narrator telling us it's possible for ants to take over the world,then it cuts to people dumping barrels of radioactive waste into the ocean and then a Love Boat style arrival of strangers to a dock.I really don't know anything about Wells but I'm pretty sure he lived before b-roll,radioactive waste and the Love Boat. This movie has all the elements of a made for TV disaster but it was a real movie,even though it starred Joan Collins. They imply that the waste(which is silver)created the giant ants but a day later there's a town full of people who have been ruled by ants for a long time.What? There's very little story,lots of over acting and the ants are very fake looking.Anytime one attacks a person it goes to a tight shot and the camera starts shaking wildly so we cant see how dumb the ants look.This is a very average giant bug movie.

To begin with, I must confess that I've been an ardent fan of "monster" movies since I first started trekking off to every Saturday Matinée at eight years of age in the early fifties. Flat out love 'em! Of course, for the most part, these were "B Movies." With various exceptions these were aimed at "our" audience, made quickly and with absurdly low budgets. They served (beyond hopefully making money) to entertain. And, to entertain is what they usually accomplished. I believe that one should always take a film at face value. Did it effectively tell the story, no matter how absurd? Was the acting at least reasonably good and generally acceptable? Were the production values up to par, at least for a film with limited resources? How well did they do with what they had? And, in the end, did it entertain? With these factors in mind I rate this film higher than most have. That is, on the high end of "B Movies." The film is, considering the budget, well done overall. The actors, a notable "Star" list actually, are generally much better than the script they were given. (I had the pleasure to know co-star Albert Salmi when he starred with Barry Newman in the TV series "Petrocelli," 1973-1974. I met John David Carson when he guest starred as well. Both were able and versatile actors, as are several of the others.) The excessively loud and near constant screaming of high pitched women is a bit too much though. The special effects are decent and work particularly well, with a bit of forgiveness. Everything considered, the story is well told. I enjoyed this movie. It is, particularly if you are fond of the genre', suitably entertaining.