🐜 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

#JoanVsTheAnts #BertIGordonMadness #WellsInNameOnly #AntFarmLobby #FloridianFeverDream #EcoHorrorCamp #RubberBugMayhem #ColdWarCreepers

A Two-Star Take on “Day of the Animals”

Few films manage to weaponize both housecats and Leslie Nielsen’s chest hair in the same ninety-eight minutes. Day of the Animals (1977) does—and still clocks in as only the second-strangest eco-horror relic of the Carter administration. Alas, ozone panic and animal rampage do not automatically equal cinematic gold; sometimes they yield an overcooked trail mix of good intentions, rubber fangs, and unearned machismo. Consider this your formal, faint-praise salute.

William Girdler had just scored a surprise hit with Grizzly (1976) when producer Edward L. Montoro shouted, “Again, but bigger—and with every species at REI!” Girdler obliged, recycling practically the same template—swap one bear for an entire food chain, crank the aerosol-panic subplot to DEFCON-2, and call it a cautionary tale. Financing came via Film Ventures International, a studio whose business model was equal parts hustle and hazy accounting; $1.2 million later, the green light blinked.

What sets this project apart is the ozone hook. By 1977, “CFCs” had entered nightly news lingo, and Day tried to surf that anxiety wave: animals at elevations above 5,000 feet go berserk, and civilization forgets to pack sunscreen or radios. In theory, it was forward-looking environmental commentary; in practice, it was The Birds on a bulk-purchase budget.

Of course, marketing further muddied the situation. Since Girdler, Montoro, Christopher George, and Richard Jaeckel were all returning vets from Grizzly, many viewers mistook Day for an official sequel, so much so that the real Grizzly II (shot in 1983, released officially in 2021) felt like déjà vu of déjà vu. Symmetry is lovely; originality, not required.

Christopher George once again dons the rugged guide persona, this time opposite Michael Ansara’s stoic Native American ranger, a combo that suggests REI clerks on a team-building retreat. Lynda Day George, an actual activist for ozone awareness, signed on to lend the proceedings a veneer of virtue, while Leslie Nielsen, still two years shy of his Airplane! Reinvention breaks bad as a swaggering ad executive who bullies tourists and attempts to wrestle what the script calls a “grizzly” (read: cinnamon-colored black bear). That ursine scuffle is the film’s GIF-able moment: Nielsen shirtless, screaming, approximating WWE choreography before becoming Bear Chow Deluxe.

Behind the camera, animal wrangler Monty Cox corralled wolves, hawks, and at least one genuinely confused honey bear, aided by Susan Backlinie—yes, the Jaws skinny-dipper-who moonlighted as Lynda Day George’s stunt double. Shot in Todd-AO 35 at Long Barn, California, the production looks crisp when it isn’t being upstaged by stock wildlife inserts. Still, the central premise—depleted ozone equals murder-monkeys—forces the plot into a loopy relay of unconnected set pieces: hawks knock hikers off cliffs, dogs form a roving street gang, and Mother Nature queues an entire menagerie for cameo carnage.

Narrative cohesion was sacrificed to the almighty checklist of Things That Bite. Tension rarely builds; it resets after each attack like a grim nature-themed carnival game. By the time our survivors float to safety on a makeshift raft, the audience has developed an advanced sympathy for the poor mountain lions forced to pad through clunky set-ups.

Critics pounced faster than the film’s irate rodents. Contemporary reviews labeled it derivative, amateurish, and—worst sin of all—humorless. Even genre devotees have trouble defending the plywood character arcs and bargain-basement matte shots. Rotten Tomatoes’ post-facto 40% score feels generous, possibly gifted by nostalgic insomniacs.

Yet cult status is a stubborn creature. Home-video reissues—from Media Home Entertainment’s chewed-up VHS to Severin’s 2021 Region-Free Blu-ray—keep finding new eyeballs. Rifftrax’s 2017 commentary helped; hearing Michael J. Nelson brand Nielsen a “proto-Ron Swanson gone feral” almost makes the runtime glide. Meanwhile, environmentalists cite the film as so-bad-it’s-good propaganda: if slap-fighting a bear is the price of ignoring aerosol regulation, maybe we do need caps on CFCs.

In pop-culture trivia circles, Day scores extra credit for accidental alumni networking: Backlinie’s double duty, Nielsen and child-actress Michelle Stacy’s eventual rendezvous in Airplane!, and the bizarre ripple effect of Grizzly II’s delayed release. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a B-sides compilation—occasionally fascinating, mostly filler, undeniably weird.

Conclusion

Ultimately, Day of the Animals is an under-seasoned trail mix of eco-horror posturing and drive-in schlock. Two stars for ambition, bear-wrestling bravado, and pristine Sierra vistas; none for pacing, plausibility, or respect for raccoon wranglers. Watch with friends, beverages, and a sturdy ozone layer overhead.

⭐️⭐️ (2/5)

#EcoHorror #WilliamGirdler #LeslieNielsenVsBear #SchlockCinema #VintageCultFilm #OzoneGoneBonkers

Film: A 2-Star Review of Tentacles (1977): “Release the Suck!”

You haven’t truly lived until you’ve seen Henry Fonda deliver an entire performance from a telephone, watched John Huston try to out-act a floating pool toy, and witnessed a pair of killer whales avenge the death of Shelley Winters. If that sounds like your idea of a quiet Saturday night, then Tentacles—Ovidio G. Assonitis’ Jaws-wannabe-slash-octopus-therapy-session—is your siren song. This movie is what happens when you ask Italy to make seafood horror with a million-dollar budget and a leftover octopus from Sesame Street. The results are just chewy enough to swallow, if you’re into saltwater schlock served with a straight face.

The Monster Beneath the Budget

Conceived as a transparent cash grab after Jaws chewed its way through the 1975 box office, Tentacles emerged from the depths of European financing and sweaty desperation. Italian producer-director Ovidio G. Assonitis—credited pseudonymously as “Oliver Hellman,” because nothing screams “this is legit” like a fake Anglo name—had the dream of scaring America’s beachgoers again. Instead, he built a life-sized rubber octopus for nearly a million bucks, which promptly sank into the ocean like his dignity.

Originally envisioned as a satire of the killer-animal craze (which might’ve actually worked), the script was rewritten into something dead serious—because nothing heightens terror like people solemnly debating marine sonar levels. Assonitis also wanted John Wayne in the lead, proving he could dream bigger than his insurance policy. Wayne was too ill. Then he turned to Henry Fonda, who agreed, suffered a heart attack, and was promptly parked in a chair with a rotary phone. That left John Huston—yes, The Maltese Falcon John Huston—to try and glue this tentacled mess together.

Huston, Fonda, Winters, and Whales—Oh My

The casting reads like a Hollywood fever dream after a three-martini lunch. John Huston delivers lines like he’s negotiating the Treaty of Versailles, Shelley Winters acts like she’s in The Poseidon Adventure 2: Electric Boogaloo, and Bo Hopkins channels both the marine biologist and the grizzled sea dog from Jaws with all the subtlety of a boat motor to the face. Hopkins even gives an emotional pep talk to a pair of killer whales. That’s not a metaphor. He literally encourages his orca pals before they go punch a cephalopod to death.

The plot sloshes forward like a tidepool full of discarded exposition. People in the scenic (and very real) town of Solana Beach start turning up stripped to the bone, and the local sheriff can’t tell an octopus from a tuna can. A reporter (Huston), a marine expert (Hopkins), and a company with a name so generic it might as well be “Evil Corp Inc.” all point fingers while the octopus eats kids and scuba divers indiscriminately. For those keeping score at home: plot logic drowned on day one, somewhere off the coast of Pismo Beach.

Meanwhile, the big creature itself—our eight-legged antihero—is often represented by a single, flailing rubber arm. After the original model sank, production literally sent a diver underwater to manually wave a tentacle. I’m not making that up. It’s like watching a bathtub puppet show staged by unionized sea cucumbers.

Reviews That Should Have Been Written in Ink

Upon release, critics collectively blew a raspberry. The New York Times shrugged it off as reheated Jaws chowder, while Variety correctly diagnosed “atrocious acting” and “wooden direction,” possibly confusing the octopus for the lead actor. The film’s Rotten Tomatoes score currently hovers at an elegant zero percent, which feels both earned and a bit harsh—like giving a participation ribbon to a sunken sponge.

But somehow, Tentacles wriggled into cult status. It aired on German television as part of the SchleFaZ (Worst Films Ever) series, which is like the Criterion Collection of cringe. MGM bundled it in a DVD double feature with Empire of the Ants, another eco-horror gem from the “nature hates you” subgenre. And in 2022, Kino Lorber gave it the full Blu-ray treatment, proving that no monster—rubber, CGI, or otherwise—ever truly dies in the home video market.

The film now lives on as a trivia night punchline and a camp curiosity. It’s a monument to the belief that if you throw enough stars, glue, and seawater at a script, you might just entertain people in the most baffling way possible.

Epilogue: The Ink Blots of Glory

If Tentacles had embraced its inner silliness instead of solemnly flailing through the motions, it might’ve become a masterpiece of madness. Instead, it floats in that cinematic purgatory of “so-bad-it’s-fascinating,” a sushi platter of bad dubbing, melodrama, and mollusk-induced mayhem. It’s a film you watch once, talk about for a week, and then forget—until the next time you’re drunk in a video store or get dared at a horror marathon.

⭐️⭐️ (2/5)

#ReleaseTheSuck #OctoFlop #ShelleyWintersDeservedBetter #JawsButDumber #WhalesForJustice #HenryFondaSitsItOut #DeepSeaDisaster

Film: “The Sharks Are the Only Ones Making Sense: A 3-Star Review of Mako: The Jaws of Death”

Some movies take you on a journey. Others take you hostage. Mako: The Jaws of Death does a little bit of both—provided you’re okay being duct-taped to a sinking pontoon boat captained by a man who talks to sharks and stares like he lost an eye in a staring contest with Poseidon. It’s one part animal rights manifesto, one part grindhouse curio, and one part head trauma—but hey, the sharks are cool. And by “cool,” I mean better actors than most of the humans onscreen. This is Jaws if Spielberg were replaced by your uncle who sells rusted scuba gear out of a Florida shed and tells you dolphins speak Spanish.

Let’s start with the bite behind the scenes. Mako was actually conceived before Jaws by Florida’s own schlock maestro William Grefé, who must’ve been the only guy in 1974 thinking, “You know what the world needs? A shark movie where the sharks are the good guys.” Naturally, no studio bit. But then Spielberg made us all afraid to pee in the ocean, and suddenly Grefé was back at the table with his man-versus-nature-with-ESP idea and a script that probably smelled like seaweed and Marlboros.

So yes, despite being painted as a cynical Jaws ripoff, Mako was actually a prophet without a budget. But as with all prophecies, the timing is everything. Grefé had his script. He had his sharks. All he needed was a star who wouldn’t scream every time the water got above their ankles.

Enter Richard Jaeckel, a man so unflappable he literally took a head wound on the first day of shooting, got stitched up, and said “roll camera.” The guy only messed up one line the entire film. Somewhere, Laurence Olivier just sighed in jealous awe. Unfortunately, Jaeckel had to share scenes with a cast of cartoonish miscreants, including Buffy Dee as a strip club owner who wants to put a shark in a burlesque act, because apparently he thought SeaWorld meets Showgirls was a viable business model.

The plot is as thin as Jaeckel’s patience: a reclusive weirdo named Sonny Stein can telepathically communicate with sharks thanks to a mystical Filipino medallion—which is the exact kind of object you’d expect to find in a Key West pawn shop next to a taxidermied mermaid. He uses this connection not for peace, but for revenge. Revenge on scientists. Revenge on businessmen. Revenge on anyone who didn’t recycle. It’s like Free Willy meets Taxi Driver, but with gill slits and more fish guts.

Production, to use a technical term, was a complete aquatic dumpster fire. The main camera broke, the boat got stuck on a sandbar, and then Jaeckel got scalped by fate. And yet somehow, through sheer swampy Florida grit, the movie was finished—with only two medallions made and a $300 van that Grefé bought off a guy probably named “Captain Ronnie.”

Critics were confused. Audiences were confused. The sharks, probably, were also confused. This wasn’t Jaws and it didn’t try to be. It was a twisted, lo-fi morality tale where the real monsters wear Speedos and laboratory coats. It was received as an oddity, and remains one—a kind of aquatic folk horror with PETA undertones and Grindhouse Weeklyenergy.

And yet, Mako has held on. It’s part of the holy order of post-Jaws cash-ins, alongside Orca, Piranha, Tentacles, and that weird Italian movie where a shark fights a helicopter. But Mako stands out because it means something—like a fever dream from a man who once saw a dolphin cry and never recovered. Its low-budget sincerity makes it less exploitative than its peers, and its upside-down morality makes it almost…dare I say…radical.

Even now, the film has cult status among exploitation fans and bad-movie connoisseurs. And in an era where sharks are still cast as villains, Sonny Stein’s gory vendetta feels like it could be reborn in an A24 reboot. Maybe cast Timothée Chalamet. Maybe don’t. But bring back the medallion.

In the end, Mako: The Jaws of Death is a rough ride on a leaky raft—but at least it’s pointed in a direction. It’s clunky, murky, and occasionally asinine, but it swims against the current. And in a genre where everyone’s out to kill the shark, maybe the real killer is humanity’s inability to leave well enough alone.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3/5)

#SharkSympathy #MakoMadness #RichardJaeckelFTW #GrefeGrindhouse #FloridaManCinema #CultFilm #JawsClone #EcoHorror #SharksDeserveBetter #BMovieJustice