Empire of the Ants

1977 "For they shall inherit the earth... sooner than you think!"
4.2| 1h29m| PG| en| More Info
Released: 29 June 1977 Released
Producted By: Cinema 77
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

A Florida real estate developer and her captain lure investors to a property in the Everglades called Dreamland Shores, under false pretenses that the swampland will soon be developed. After the group arrives on a small island, they find it has been overrun by giant mutated ants, brought on by the dumping of toxic waste in the area.

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Director

Bert I. Gordon

Production Companies

Cinema 77

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Empire of the Ants Audience Reviews

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews
Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny
Roman Sampson One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.
Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
buckikris 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).
Andy Howlett Stuck for something to help the Yellowtail go down (although it goes down quite well anyway) we selected 'Empire of the Ants' on Amazon. Two things told us it was not going to be a riveting experience: it was made in 1977 and its big star was Joan Collins. Still, we'd paid the not inconsiderable sum of £3.99 and we were going to stick with it. Apparently a spill of nuclear waste has caused ants to grow to alarming proportions, and they get their mandibles stuck into a group of no-hopers, con-men and assorted make-weights as they tour an isolated island looking to buy real estate. It's pretty poor stuff all round, with many of the actors (including Ms Collins) apparently saying whatever the script says without bothering to understand or mean it. We turned to each other as the final credits rolled and uttered words that cannot be used on this fine forum. Be warned. If you want a much, much better giant ant film, the 1950's THEM is the one to beat. I was going to say '...despite the crude effects', but it seems nothing had improved during the 20 years between that film and this one.
classicsoncall Oh my, where to begin. You'd think with the passing of almost two decades since 1959's "Them", special effects technology would have made a dramatic improvement in presenting giant insects on the big screen. After all, "Star Wars" came out in 1977 too. Alas, not to be.After all this time this is the first Joan Collins movie I've ever seen and it was a kick watching her try to peddle worthless swamp land to a group of unsuspecting potential buyers. Now I know where the Kardashian look originated, just get a good eyeful of Collins' makeup and hair and you can see how that whole style evolved into the present century. But this wasn't a glam picture, when Collins' character Marilyn Fryser states that the properties at Dreamland Shores are offered on a first come, first serve basis, you had to know that that's exactly what the giant mutant ants were thinking.The movie is a treasure trove of continuity gaffes and editing mistakes that make an already dumb picture even dumber. For example, right after the downpour, all the folks on the real estate tour caught in the rain are miraculously dry again. Then after the march through the swamp, alternating scenes have Marilyn's white skirt going from soiled to completely clean to dirty again. Even better than that though, during the battle with the ants at the sugar refinery, Joan Collins' character is shown outside with the others who have escaped and then she's back in the glass chamber with the queen ant again! After a while it begins to look like this was all done on purpose, and maybe it was - who knows? You know, I couldn't help thinking that this movie could have been a whole lot better, even if nothing else was changed but to make it in glorious black and white. Then it might have ranked right up there with some of the other great mutant flicks of the late Fifties - "Them", "The Killer Shrews", "The Giant Gila Monster" and the granddaddy of them all - "Godzilla".But then, on second thought - Nah!
utgard14 Joan Collins is running a real estate scam in the Florida Everglades. She takes some potential investors to an island to look it over and they are all attacked by giant ants. Another laughable B movie from Bert I. Gordon. This is the third in AIP's H.G. Wells trilogy, after Food of the Gods and The Island of Dr. Moreau. Just like with most of Gordon's '50s B movies, the special effects here are very poor. The giant ants are represented by photographically enlarging the footage of real ants, as if that would fool anybody. One ridiculously ineffective scene has Robert Lansing and John David Carson on a boat swinging oars at some of the ants on a nearby shore. They are clearly swinging at nothing with the ants added later. For some scenes that require the actors to physically touch the ants, they use mock-ups of large ants that are so unrealistic the camera swings about wildly to keep the audience from focusing on them too long. It's all very cheap and no-budget but there is some quaint charm to it, I suppose.The cast takes it all seriously, as if this was going to be their Jaws. There's even some Jaws rip-off music. Joan Collins' theatrics are always worth watching. Robert Lansing does his best to rise above the material. Sexy Pamela Shoop goes braless through the whole movie. That may sound like a pretty weak contribution but one takes what one can get when watching a movie like this. The rest of the cast is made up of people you might recognize but likely won't remember their names. It's all very cheesy and tacky but also very watchable. I was never bored with it. But I am someone who can enjoy a good cheap B horror flick. Some of you might have less patience for those types of films. If nothing else, there is some nice Everglades scenery and all the footage of ants you could ever want to see. If either of those things appeals to you, this is your movie.