In the second half, the action switches to that conveniently located sugar refinery where, in the only decent moment in the film, our heroes slowly realise that the residents of the nearby town have been reduced to mindless drones by the queen’s pheromone spray. The effects – handled, as ever – by Gordon himself are predictably terrible and the ants never seem even remotely menacing. The ants themselves finally show up as a combination of atrociously matted photographic enlargements and not-at-all convincing models that were so rough and ready that they caused some of the cast minor injuries. The first half is a tedious plod around the Everglades in the company of that dreary cast as they try to set up various unconvincing relationships while all the while the ants lurk in the undergrowth watching them through a peculiar multi-circled ant-vision effect. The film changes gears mid-way through in a vain attempt to spice things up a bit. Collins’ American accent is particularly hopeless and seems to disappear altogether from time to time. Everyone is either dull (Pamela Susan Shoop, John David Carson), morally bankrupt (Robert Lansing, Collins), a sex pest (Robert Pine) or just undeveloped ant fodder (the rest of the cast) and consequently barely anyone seems to even try to give a performance that rises above those seen in the blandest of television films.
#EMPIRE OF THE UNDERGROWTH BLACK ANT FULL#
Chock full of dreadful characters the likes of which wouldn’t have made it past the first draft of an Irwin Allen disaster movie, all bedecked in eye-watering mid-70s fashion mishaps, there’s no-one here for the audience to root for. Utterly ludicrous in every respect, Empire of the Ants manages to insult both the intelligence of its audience and the good name of H.G. Joan Collins ponders where it all went so horribly wrong… Handily there’s a sugar refinery nearby and the sweet-toothed insects enslave the local population by gassing them with their queen’s pheromones, turning them into compliant and seemingly willing slaves. Unbeknownst to Collins and her motley, badly-dressed collection of 70s stereotypes (nursing all the neuroses and hang-ups that seemed de rigeur for characters in American films of the time), illegal dumping has unleashed an unexplained chemical (or possibly nuclear waste of some kind) off the nearby beaches which has caused the local ant population – though conveniently for the budget no other wildlife – to grow in size and go on the rampage.
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#EMPIRE OF THE UNDERGROWTH BLACK ANT TV#
Gordon relocates the action to the Florida everglades where a real estate scam artist (Joan Collins, shortly before her revival in fortunes when she joined the cast of the TV soap opera Dynasty (1981-1989)) is trying to offload some worthless land onto unsuspecting punters who are led to believe that all manner of fabulous developments are imminent. The short story relates the misadventures of Brazilian and English military officers who are sent to small village along the Amazon which has been overrun by a species of large and unusually intelligent black ants.
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After the risible The Food of the Gods (which took its title but precious little else from Wells’ 1904 novel The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth and which Gordon had already despoiled as the basis for Village of the Giants), Gordon turned his attention to a short story that Wells published the following year in The Strand Magazine, The Empire of the Ants.Īs with The Food of the Gods, very little of Wells actually remains beyond the title. By the mid-18970s he was long past whatever prime he may have had but he was still up to his old tricks, this time dragging poor H.G.
![empire of the undergrowth black ant empire of the undergrowth black ant](https://gameplay.tips/uploads/posts/2019-04/1556388854_empires-of-the-undergrowth.jpg)
![empire of the undergrowth black ant empire of the undergrowth black ant](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/77/86/48/77864848d0bcd0121bb9654f265d53b4.gif)
From King Dinosaur (1955) to Village of the Giants (1965), from The Amazing Colossal Man (1958) to The Food of the Gods (1976), size mattered in the cinematic world of Bert I. carved a career from an obsession with the over-sized and the gigantic, the B.I.G.ger the better. Gordon of not taking full advantage of his initials. Whatever you else you may think about him and his films, you can’t accuse Bert I.