The Hellstrom Chronicle (1971)

Lack of good storyline.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

While my overall rating for "The Hellstrom Chronicle" is not particularly high, this does not mean it's a bad film. It's just that for me, I found it to be very tedious after a while and more than 90 minutes of footage of insects and the narration by Lawrence Pressman got to be very boring to me. On the other hand, the film has some amazing footage--footage that is STILL very impressive over 40 years later.The film begins with Pressman introducing himself as Dr. Hellstrom---though this is all fiction. This 'expert' (really, just an actor) talks on and on like an excited entomologist--an entomologist who seemed more intent, at times, to scare the viewer than to truly educate. Most of the information is very true but sometimes he exaggerates in order to scare the viewer about the danger of insects or how they, ultimately, will rule the Earth.There is a lot to admire, apart from the occasionally dopey narration, about this film. The cinematography still impresses today--with micro shots of many insects as well as human fertilization. But the dryness and long-winded nature of the film make this one you wish was shorter--much shorter. I think this film would have worked better at about 45 minutes.

"The Hellstrom Chronicle", a well-done science mocumentary, came more than thirty years before Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," but the parallels are uncanny.Both movies received undeserved Oscars in the documentary field.Both were fake.Both fooled a lot of people who might otherwise have been assumed to be intelligent.The frightening differences are that "Hellstrom" did not spawn a religion of hysterical fanatics who want to destroy our quality of life and our economy."Hellstrom" was never used as a bible to brainwash college students and even innocent school children.The producer of "Hellstrom" was not given the Nobel Prize (presumably the Nobel still had some credibility in 1971).And "Hellstrom" was ultimately laughed off as a silly piece of entertainment.Which is exactly what should happen to "An Inconvenient Truth."

In 1971 a film arrived at our campus and our school was privileged to see it. Witness, would be a better word as what we learned was so fantastic. To ignore what was being shown and investigated, would be to doom our existence to the fact, we were warned of the impending doom and did nothing. The star of this film is the incredible and versatile insect as illustrated by a narrator/biologist Dr. Neil Hellstrom (Lawrence Pressman). His research takes the audience around the world in a desperate attempt to awaken our poor understanding of the mightiest creatures on the planet. Despite the fact man has the potential to destroy the world and its populations with his awesome weapons, it is the Insect who will eventually reclaim what's left. The film is informative and insightful as well as incredible with it special cameras going where only the mind can venture. Want to learn who our greatest enemy is? See this film and then guess which species will inherit the Earth. ****

"The earth was created not with the gentle caress of love, but with the brutal violence of rape."This portentous statement opens THE HELLSTROM CHRONICLE, a stunning quasi-documentary which is, in its own way, one of the most frightening movies I've ever seen, with themes that are eerily prescient in today's world.Winner of the 1971 Oscar for Best Documentary, this mostly non-fiction film - the dark side of MICROCOSMOS - recounts the history and nature of the insect world, as well as the myriad ways insects are more equipped to outlive Man in the long run. Insects have a 200-million-year head start, don't have feelings, don't ponder their own existence, don't fight within their species, can adapt to their surroundings, live harmoniously with their environment, have been using "robots" and the airwaves long before we came to be, and aren't afraid to die. Nothing Man throws at them (like pesticides) can stop their reproduction; insects quickly develop immunities while Man chokes on its own weaponry while polluting its environment. And, it would take Man a million years to repopulate the world after nuclear fallout; insects could do it in three weeks.This ominous storyline is framed in the film with Dr. Hellstrom, a fictional entomologist who narrates with an effectively brooding yet pragmatic tone that somehow comes off as dire but soothing. Some may feel that the human segments of the film distract from the force of the narrative. I, however, believe these breaks from the storyline give the viewer a breather, for the foreboding menace would be nearly unbearably intense otherwise. Also, there is one segment of the film that's obviously faked, but that's okay: it wouldn't have been prudent to film it realistically, and it nonetheless succeeds in making its point as is.Similar to THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT in that what's waiting for us in nature is scarier than any boogeyman, THE HELLSTROM CHRONICLE raises questions about Man's arrogance - our fatal flaw which will be the reason for our ultimate downfall. While the film never uses the word "God," it speaks of a "Creator," and ponders the significance of the only species that believes in a higher power yet uses "intelligence" to disprove its existence. THE HELLSTROM CHRONICLE is edge-of-your-seat drama about the horror of war and our inevitable fight to the death with the insect world - a battle that we're sure to lose. 10/10