ANTS IN PANTS

Alan Landsburg served as executive producer on ‘Ants! It Happened At Lakewood Manor’, one of three creepy crawly creature features that he worked on in 1976 / 77 (the others were ‘The Savage Bees’ and ‘Tarantula: Deadly Cargo’ – yes, we know bees aren’t really creepy crawlies under normal circumstances, but these are SAVAGE, so all bets are off). 

The ever canny Landsburg then wrote a book called ‘The Insects Are Coming’ about the mini-beast threat, citing the three films that he’d just made as evidence. We really miss that guy.  

In ‘Ants!’*, the construction of a casino next to an old family hotel unearths a colony of mutated ants who are immune to normal insecticides and really pissed off at being disturbed. Equipped with a poisonous bite and, of course, strength in numbers, the ants proceed to swarm over people and, by sheer tenacity, toxic mandibles and the liberal use of slow motion, manage to overcome their much larger human enemies. 

Hairy building site manager Robert Foxworth does his best to stop the attack by tearing up their nest with a bulldozer but, funnily enough, this just makes it worse. Much worse.

The film follows an almost hypnotically soothing pattern: characters are introduced, we are shown close ups of ants doing stuff, we get to know the characters, they are killed by ants. For a story set on a building site it’s not exactly ground breaking (yes, that is clever wording, thanks), but it’s compelling viewing, especially when they try and combat the ant invasion by digging a trench around the building, filling it with petrol and setting it alight.  

    

In the end, the surviving protagonists are reduced to hiding at the very top of the hotel, holding what look like enormous joints in their mouths and hoping that the ants will be pacified by the smoke until they can be rescued. It all seems a bit pathetic, really – they’re only fucking ants, after all.  

* We’ll dispense with the somewhat superfluous suffix now – Lakewood Manor is a made up place, so who cares what happened there? If it was, say, ‘Ants! It happened at Disneyland’, it would be a different matter.)

BARKING MAD

‘Dogs’ is a slight entry in our never ending catalogue of films about nutty dogs and other killer creatures but it scores extra points for featuring a murderous cocker spaniel, and for having a really stupid freeze frame ending.

David McCallum plays Harlan Thompson, an extremely hairy English academic stuck in a mid-western US town. He is bored, separated from his wife and drinks heavily which only fuels his growing contempt for college politics and the ignorance of his students. With his beard and shaggy bowl cut, McCallum resembles an old English Sheep Dog, obviously hinting at the animal within all of us. He also wears double denim and puts on a Michael Caine accent, but we have no idea what that is all about.

When a series of nasty cattle mutilations extend to human fatalities, it soon becomes clear that the attacks are down to a pack of dogs. These aren’t wild animals, however, but pets – pampered pooches gone psycho. Theories abound: pheromones, perhaps, collective consciousness, maybe, or could it all be down to that top secret government facility up on the hill that drains all the power and emits an eerie, high frequency noise? These are all red herrings, really, as the sudden betrayal of man’s best friend is never adequately explained, and nor is their seemingly ability to be everywhere at once (there are only about half a dozen dogs in total). What is apparent, however, is that they like students, and the fatter and slower the better (they also like ladies in showers, but then who doesn’t?) 

Our favourite part is the following exchange between Harlan and his estranged wife (who is a very poor actress). Harlan bursts in, shotgun in hand, and grabs his wife by the arm:

“Get your things together – we're leaving!”

“The dogs?”

“Yes. And it was hideous!”

“What happened?”

“I'll tell you in the car, there isn't time - now, come on, get some things. You got something I can drink?”

Luckily, she has ('in the kitchen, over the dishwasher'), and he’s going to need it, because the silly cow has left all the windows and doors open, and the pack (who seem to be very clear about their specific targets) are on their way.

The film doesn’t so much conclude as just STOP – no climax, no exposition, no explanation, not even an explosion - just the shocked survivors driving out of town and hearing radio reports of other attacks in the area. It’s not particularly satisfactory, but at least it’s enigmatic - then the camera zooms in on a passing cat and ruins everything by attempting a shock conclusion (and a hint at a sequel) which is just deeply shit. It’s an embarrassing ending to what had, until then, been an unspectacular but quietly entertaining piece of hokum. 

ALL KINDS OF ANIMALS

‘Wild Beasts’ is a Italian film from 1984 which is cagily set in ‘a Northern European city’, even though the next shot immediately establishes the location as Frankfurt, here shown as a sleazy place of pollution and drug abuse, a shithole littered with dirty foam, plastic bags and discarded syringes. We’ve been to Frankfurt, by the way, and it is an exceptionally clean, almost sterile place, although our main memory of it is apple based food stuffs and strong beer. In reality, of course, the film was shot mainly in Italy and, apparently, South Africa.  

A somewhat late entry into the ‘nature runs amuck’ sub-genre of seventies films that combined ecological concerns with exploitation tropes,  i.e. nature takes revenge against the human s who are fucking up the planet, the film soon moves on to a question that has plagued mankind for many years: what would happen if zoo animals were given PCP? Funnily enough, it turns out to not be a particularly good idea although, in the interests of balance, it should be pointed out that the dose had been administered by accident, through the city’s drug tainted water.

When there is a power cut, the creature’s electronic cages spring open, and the hopped up lions and tigers and bears get out and start tearing apart the zoo keepers, and angry elephants smash through the outer wall and start rampaging down the streets and stomping on people’s heads. There’s all sorts of genuinely surreal juxtapositions and assorted fun to be had at first: a cheetah chases a Volkswagen Beetle, a tiger gets onto the tube, a herd of oxen smash up a pinball arcade. In an unforgivable move, however, the film makers make the apes and monkeys sit it out, thereby missing a stupendous opportunity to create the greatest film ever made. But that’s not the only negative.  

The film is often quite astonishing in how closely it places actors and animals together, especially the stunt men, who allow themselves to be wrestled to the ground by hyenas and swatted around by lions on a very regular basis. The suspicion that health and safety rules were not strictly adhered to is confirmed almost immediately when lead perm John Aldrich (playing a character called Rupert) puts a huge tiger in a playful headlock and, later, there is a quite terrifying scene in which an angry polar bear closely pursues some children down a corridor, presumably while an ‘animal expert’ had him in the sights of a high calibre rifle. 

Unforgivably, there are also a number of sequences in which the animals are clearly in distress and, worst of all, scenes of actual, quantifiable cruelty, including live rats being torched with a flame thrower and big cats being let into a pen with cows and pigs and horses and filmed as they attack and kill their terrified prey.  That’s some unnecessary shit any way you slice it, and clearly indicates that there are beasts behind the camera as well as in front of it.

In the end, as it always bloody does, the PCP wears off, and the animals go back to their usual cuddly, compliant selves (Aldrich tickles the blood stained belly of the previously murderous polar bear, and the happy creature rolls around making contented noises). In a stupid twist ending, it is revealed that children have been drinking the Angel Dust laced water, and have gone kill crazy, too. It all gets sorted out, of course, although, this time, a flamethrower is not employed. 

THE MONSTER MOVIE

There is a scene in ‘Prophecy’ where a man and his two children are sleeping outside in the natural splendour of the country surrounding the Androscoggin River in Maine, New England. The man is fast asleep, as is his daughter. His son is restless, and zips himself up into his sleeping bag until only his face is showing. Suddenly, there is a fearsome roar and the camp site is invaded by a hideous looking creature, part bear, part raw meat, all death. The twenty foot tall beast quickly and bloodily dispatches father and daughter but the son has time to jump up and try to escape, except, restricted by his zipped up sleeping bag, he is only able to hop like a terrified kangaroo. His somewhat amusing progress is almost immediately thwarted by the intervention of a massive paw, which flicks him through the air and smashes his body into a large rock, issuing force a spray of blood and feathers from the sleeping bag. The concept is comical, but the execution is shocking, brutal. Whatever this thing is, it is clearly not to be fucked with. 

There is a massive amount of interest in ‘Prophecy’ for even the most casual of viewers: giant tadpoles, for instance, monster babies, disaffected Native Americans, an axe fight. Then there is Robert Foxworth, perhaps the hairiest leading man of his generation. And let’s not forget the vampiric mutant monster baby, and its vengeful mother, the enormous, deadly semi-aquatic meat and bear beast who looks like it lives its life in agony, and very much wants to take it out on somebody, preferably a tourist. 

It’s the fault of big business, of course, and all comes down to a supposedly ethical paper company who are secretly and illegally using mercury as part of their something or other process, and therefore making everything and everyone in the area big and freakish and pissed off psycho nut job mental. Even the raccoons are kill crazy.

The shock ending is inconclusive and somewhat predictable, and is actually the trashiest thing about the whole surprisingly dignified undertaking. You should definitely watch this: it’s great and funny and scary and GREAT and the scenery is stunning. That’s pretty much everything we want from a film, right there - the giant rage filled mince monsters are a bonus.

A PAIN IN THE NECK

In 1987, some idiot thought it would be a good idea to make a film of the first ‘Gor’ novel, not least because it would give them the opportunity go to Mauritius and film lots of attractive girls in very small bikinis fighting each other. 

The finished product bears very little relation to the source material, which we would have had no problem with if the film makers had something better in mind but, clearly, they didn’t. At least if it had been a straight adaptation it would have appealed to the sort of people who take their girlfriends into butcher shops on a dog leash, but, as it is, it appeals to no-one, except maybe people who are so ironic they don’t know up from down anymore. We need not linger on the film, as us watching it in the first place was more than it deserved. Let’s get to the interesting part… 

In a move that could have been described as a coup if he hadn’t already prostituted his art a thousand times by this stage, the producers signed up the magnificent Oliver Reed to star as an evil tyrant King. Reed, looking weary and still sporting the ginger hair and beard he wore in ‘Castaway’, gives a broad but still interesting performance. 

He plays the King as a spoiled brat in a brutish body, a nasty bully who, like a Caligula or Heliogabalus, giggles like a naughty little boy as people are put to death in horrible ways. The rest of his day is spent glowering and bristling at the sheer injustice of the world not being exactly as he wants it at all times and you can see in his eyes that he is going to have to be very spiteful to somebody in order to make up for it. 

We know that at acting school they teach deportment and diction and fencing, but we’re not sure if they cover ‘getting an arrow through your neck’. No matter, Ollie is on hand to provide a master class on the subject. 

Oliver Reed is the sole reason that this rubbish is remotely watchable, as he so often was. We miss him a lot. There was a sequel made, but Reed wasn’t in it (arrow in neck related), so FUCK IT.

ANIMAL OSCARS

There are a number of reasons to write about Robert Clouse’s 1977 film ‘The Pack’, not least the fact that is an excellent, suspenseful film that keeps the viewer entertained for all of its ninety eight minutes. It’s also unusual, and we like that, and it reminds us of the sort of thing Guy N. Smith might come up with if he had a load of cash and a course of subtle injections. The big thing for us, however, is that it features the greatest ever acting performance by a dog. 

Completely ignored by the Academy, this dog is absolutely superb and, as screen villains go, makes Alan Rickman look like the jumped up am-drammer that he is. This dog is better than 90% of human actors: he is the Robert Ryan of dog villains, seething with hatred and danger and rage. We don’t know what they were taunting him with, but we are glad that we are not it. Actually, this dog is so good that we expect that he didn’t need to be poked with anything, he simply had long conversations with the director about his character’s motivation, then made lots of detailed notes in the margin of his script before squaring his shoulders and going out and giving the performance of a lifetime.

The story is simple, but nicely set up. Joe Don Baker, the immovable object, is on remote Seal Island with around half a dozen other permanent residents and a party of tourists. JDB is the conservation warden, a former Alaskan fisherman (i.e. very tough) who was initially sent to the island 'to study prawns'. The island is a popular destination for holiday makers who, unforgivably, often buy dogs to bring on their vacation, only to abandon them as they jump on the weekly ferry for their homes in the city (something seems not quite right about that bit but we went with it and everything was okay). 

The abandoned and bitter and hungry dogs have formed a pack and, under the charismatic leadership of the greatest dog actor in the world, are now ready to mount a challenge to the humans, who they want very dead very much – partly because they hate them for their cruelty and partly, of course, because humans are extremely tasty.

The film unfolds slowly and deliberately, but from the first glimpse of the canine Laurence Olivier, teeth bared furiously, you know that this is all going to end in an almighty battle, and it does, as the surviving humans rally under Joe Don Baker to keep themselves alive until the next ferry comes, and the pack lay siege, desperate to take their revenge and have their favourite dinner. 

There are some illogical bits (JDB batters the top dog thespian with the butt of his rifle, despite it being easier to shoot him; a woman on the run from the dogs takes shelter in a barn full of dog shit and is then surprised when the pack come home and tear her to bits) but none of that matters AT ALL. The film is good, the tension is high, the setting is marvellous and, yes, the lead dog is a bona fide genius - and he doesn’t even get a credit. Dirty, delicious human bastards. 

...

Genuinely good animal actors are few and far between, of course. Toto was okay, but his role mainly involved trotting from one predesignated point to another and jumping up. We thought Babe was marvellous, until we found out he was a robot. Digby* wasn’t big at all, and so poor at expressions that the director combed his hair down over his lifeless eyes. 

Aside from our unnamed mongrel genius, the only ever truly great animal actor we can think of is Cheeta from the ‘Tarzan’ films. 

There is a persistent rumour that most of Cheeta’s acting was facilitated by rubbing peanut butter on his gums and letting him smoke opium but, even when he isn’t chattering and licking his lips, he presents us with a fully rounded character, a mischievous force of nature, as best displayed in this unforgettable vignette from the ridiculously enjoyable ‘Tarzan’s New York Adventure’ (1942).

We particularly likes it when he talcs his arse. Good luck with that powder puff, Jane.

* We are slightly obsessed with Digby, The Biggest Dog In The World and, inexplicably, we're also quite angry with him.

SOMETHING THE COMPUTER FORGOT

You're not really alive unless you spend a small amount of time thinking about when you're going to die, and how. 

Whereas you'd like to think you might get taken out by a sniper, or sacrifice yourself saving others, it's more likely that you'll die in a hospital bed - or in the street, like a dog. A small crowd will gather, then disperse because they need to go on shopping and your lifeless body is depressing them. 

If you need cheering up about it, though, watch the above clip from 'Chosen Survivors' and be assured: whatever else happens - you won't be going out like that.

If you're intrigued by the clip, we can reveal that the film it comes from is about a group of people who are sitting out a thermo-nuclear war in a bunker two thousand feet under the ground. Unfortunately, they are sharing the subterranean space with a million pissed off vampire bats. Guy N. Smith would have been proud.

Here's a trailer.

In many ways, it's a pretty stupid film, but TOMTIT think stupid is clever. It's a coping mechanism.