🐜 Empire of the Ants (1977): Nature Strikes Back… On a Budget

In the grand cinematic pantheon of “giant animal attacks coastal real estate scam,” films—a surprisingly robust genre in the 1970s—Empire of the Ants scurries in as neither the worst nor the best, but certainly among the most radioactive. Directed, written, and special-effected (for better or worse) by B-movie monarch Bert I. Gordon, this 1977 offering hurls Joan Collins into the Everglades with little more than a sales pitch, a speedboat, and several rubber ant puppets to defend herself. What results is a charmingly chaotic slice of eco-horror that’s equal parts camp, confusion, and Cold War paranoia. And like any decent mutant insect movie, it deserves at least three stars: one for effort, one for audacity, and one for surviving post-production without actual audible dialogue.

🎬 Wells, Sort Of

Let’s begin by acknowledging the polite fiction that Empire of the Ants is “based on” the H.G. Wells short story of the same name. This is rather like saying a rollercoaster is based on Newtonian physics—it’s not wrong, per se, just irrelevant to what you’re actually experiencing. The 1905 story is a grim little tale about colonialism and ant intelligence. Gordon’s version? Ants get high on radioactive sludge and start a cult in Florida. Close enough.

This was the third and final entry in American International Pictures’ stab at adapting Wells’ work, following The Food of the Gods (1976) and The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977). Unlike Moreau, which at least made an effort at philosophical horror, Empire of the Ants said “to hell with nuance” and leaned fully into Gordon’s beloved formula: take a normal thing, blow it up (literally), and throw humans at it. It also marked the eighth time Gordon had used the “giant monster” schtick. At that point, it was less a creative decision than a lifestyle.

🎭 A Few Bumps in the Swamp

Joan Collins, ever the professional, headlines the film as Marilyn Fryser, a land developer whose ethics

are as shady as her 1970s eyeshadow. She’s pitching swampfront property to an unsuspecting group of potential suckers buyers. Their real problem, however, isn’t shady deeds, it’s the fact that an offshore nuclear ooze spill has transformed local ants into six-foot-tall socialist overlords with mind-control powers.

The cast, including Robert Lansing as the grizzled boat captain and Pamela Susan Shoop as a screaming extra with jaw issues (more on that later), runs the usual B-movie gamut: functional, good-looking, and occasionally coherent. Gordon’s ants—played alternately by actual magnified bullet ants, terrible process shots, and full-sized foam puppets—are the real stars. Collins later recalled how the rubber ants scratched the cast and how she was strong-armed into performing her own stunts after stunt doubles failed to arrive. Allegedly, she feared being labeled “difficult” in Hollywood. Considering she later survived Dynasty, this film was child’s play.

Filming took place in the Florida Everglades, where the cast braved freezing weather, alligator-infested waters, and a lack of bathrooms that required speedboat commutes. In one infamous moment, the sound engineer—after clashing with Gordon—threw all the original audio tapes into the swamp. The entire movie had to be looped in post. The result? Characters appear to be poorly dubbed foreign tourists in their own movie. It’s glorious.

📉 Cheesy, Crunchy, Cult Classic

Critics were not kind. Rotten Tomatoes currently lists the film with a 5% approval rating, which feels harsh given the technical achievement of having a queen ant run a sugar refinery through pheromone-based indentured servitude. That’s innovation. But what the film lacked in credibility it made up for in theatrical gimmicks, like theaters displaying actual ant farms in their lobbies (though, mercifully, not near the popcorn).

Despite its obvious flaws, or more accurately, because of them, Empire of the Ants has developed a certain staying power. It was nominated (somehow) for a Saturn Award for Best Actress, a testament to Joan Collins’ ability to maintain composure while being poked with foam legs and insulted by Floridian mosquitoes. It aired as part of double features (with The Brinks Job in the UK, no less) and has been riffed, spoofed, and rediscovered by B-movie aficionados, MST3K fans, and retro horror festivals ever since.

From its obvious matte lines to its towering lack of subtlety, Empire of the Ants is a creature feature that never quite crawled into the mainstream but instead burrowed a tunnel straight into cult territory. It’s not good, but it’s never boring—and for late-70s genre fare, that’s more than most can say.

🏁 Final Verdict

If you’ve ever wondered what it would look like if Dynasty met Them! in a swamp full of unionized ants and poorly dubbed screams, this is your movie. Empire of the Ants is not high cinema, but it is wildly entertaining in the way only a radioactive ant-based land scam thriller can be. Worth watching, ideally with friends, cocktails, and an entomologist on speed dial.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ out of 5

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