When ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
scioscribe informed me that Saul Bass, the noted movie credit sequence and poster designer who worked on everything from North by Northwest to Casino had also directed a horror movie about ants that was free on Amazon Prime and had an ending so bizarre that the studio cut it and it was only released a couple years ago, I promptly watched it over lunch and liveblogged over email.
Ants begin behaving strangely in the desert, building towers and cooperating to kill predators. Two scientists move into a geodesic dome to study this phenomena. This goes about as well as you'd expect.
Phase IV was released in 1974 and OH BOY can you tell. It's essentially a '50s monster movie filtered through an incredibly '70s sensibility, so it swerves between standard horror moments (dialogue like, "Oh my God, they're huge! ANTS!!!!!") and a dreamlike, allegorical trippiness.
There are moments that are genuinely haunting and beautiful, such as the towers built by the ants, a girl stumbling barefoot through the desert and singing hymns in a wobbly voice, and a lot of the ant photography.
The ants are real ants, and they're shot to highlight their strange beauty and to tell little stories about them that make sense within the plot but also function as self-contained stories. An ant relay in which they drag insecticide to their queen, one ant taking over for the next as they succumb to the poison, is halfway between Viking saga and the Chernobyl repairmen; a sequence involving a praying mantis is a perfect little masterpiece of misdirection, suspense, and a satisfying reveal. When the scientists try to kill the ants, we see it from the ants' perspective and it's shot like a classic war movie. All these sequences are like movies from an alternate world in which ants are the dominant species.
[Note: ants are most definitely harmed in the making of this movie.]
And then there's the human story. There's a scientist who wants to communicate with the ants, a scientist who wants to kill them, and a teenage girl who survives an ant attack. (Despite the massive 70s-ness of the film, there is no sex or romance THANK GOD.) I think it may have been an allegory of the war in Vietnam. It's definitely an allegory of war and how men who'd rather wage war than make peace ruin everything.
The movie as a whole was so 70s that I kept emailingscioscribe moments that I thought were peak 70s, only they kept getting topped.
"2 dudes and a girl naked in a decon shower wearing nothing but giant goggles while ants fall in slomo = quintessential 70s."
"On second thought, glowing pink crystal pyramids next to a geodesic dome is the most 70s thing ever."
And then I hit the ending. Both endings.
Cut for spoilers and ant-related body horror movie poster.
The ants try to communicate, indicating that they want one of the humans. The warlike scientist tries to bomb the ants, but gets eaten by them. The girl stumbles barefoot through the desert, offering herself to the ants - this is actually a very beautiful, haunting sequence. The previously pacifist scientist goes nuts and tries to kill all the ants, then falls into a ginormous ant tunnel where he finds the girl! She has joined with the...
"ANT CONSCIOUSNESS.
No, THIS is the most 70s thing ever."
"So basically, it was a Vietnam war allegory about ants that turns into 2001 at the very end."
Then we watched the alternate ending. I don't even know how to describe it. I will just copy my emails:
"The banging makes it all extra trippy."
"OMG."
"WTAF."
"The third eye is an ant tunnel!"
"I keep being wrong. THIS is the most 70s thing ever."
scioscribe informed me that Saul Bass, the noted movie credit sequence and poster designer who worked on everything from North by Northwest to Casino had also directed a horror movie about ants that was free on Amazon Prime and had an ending so bizarre that the studio cut it and it was only released a couple years ago, I promptly watched it over lunch and liveblogged over email. Ants begin behaving strangely in the desert, building towers and cooperating to kill predators. Two scientists move into a geodesic dome to study this phenomena. This goes about as well as you'd expect.
Phase IV was released in 1974 and OH BOY can you tell. It's essentially a '50s monster movie filtered through an incredibly '70s sensibility, so it swerves between standard horror moments (dialogue like, "Oh my God, they're huge! ANTS!!!!!") and a dreamlike, allegorical trippiness.
There are moments that are genuinely haunting and beautiful, such as the towers built by the ants, a girl stumbling barefoot through the desert and singing hymns in a wobbly voice, and a lot of the ant photography.
The ants are real ants, and they're shot to highlight their strange beauty and to tell little stories about them that make sense within the plot but also function as self-contained stories. An ant relay in which they drag insecticide to their queen, one ant taking over for the next as they succumb to the poison, is halfway between Viking saga and the Chernobyl repairmen; a sequence involving a praying mantis is a perfect little masterpiece of misdirection, suspense, and a satisfying reveal. When the scientists try to kill the ants, we see it from the ants' perspective and it's shot like a classic war movie. All these sequences are like movies from an alternate world in which ants are the dominant species.
[Note: ants are most definitely harmed in the making of this movie.]
And then there's the human story. There's a scientist who wants to communicate with the ants, a scientist who wants to kill them, and a teenage girl who survives an ant attack. (Despite the massive 70s-ness of the film, there is no sex or romance THANK GOD.) I think it may have been an allegory of the war in Vietnam. It's definitely an allegory of war and how men who'd rather wage war than make peace ruin everything.
The movie as a whole was so 70s that I kept emailing
scioscribe moments that I thought were peak 70s, only they kept getting topped. "2 dudes and a girl naked in a decon shower wearing nothing but giant goggles while ants fall in slomo = quintessential 70s."
"On second thought, glowing pink crystal pyramids next to a geodesic dome is the most 70s thing ever."
And then I hit the ending. Both endings.
Cut for spoilers and ant-related body horror movie poster.
The ants try to communicate, indicating that they want one of the humans. The warlike scientist tries to bomb the ants, but gets eaten by them. The girl stumbles barefoot through the desert, offering herself to the ants - this is actually a very beautiful, haunting sequence. The previously pacifist scientist goes nuts and tries to kill all the ants, then falls into a ginormous ant tunnel where he finds the girl! She has joined with the...
"ANT CONSCIOUSNESS.
No, THIS is the most 70s thing ever."
"So basically, it was a Vietnam war allegory about ants that turns into 2001 at the very end."
Then we watched the alternate ending. I don't even know how to describe it. I will just copy my emails:
"The banging makes it all extra trippy."
"OMG."
"WTAF."
"The third eye is an ant tunnel!"
"I keep being wrong. THIS is the most 70s thing ever."
From:
no subject
I knew very little about this going in, mostly just 1) Saul Bass, so distinctive visuals, 2) notable desert cinematography, 3) the ants are regular-sized. All of these things were true! I really couldn't get over how effectively Bass got a narrative out of ants who were, surely, just doing what ants do; watching this, you really do feel like somehow he gathered up a bunch of hyper-intelligent ants and probably doomed humanity in doing so. The ant scenes are just very striking.
I definitely second finding the scene of the girl stumbling through the desert haunting--it's echoed nicely by Pacifist Scientist's later trip, where the photography stays gorgeous while growing ever slightly trippier, as if to prepare you for the end. And I was hooked from the start by the opening, with the calm narration about what was happening and who knew about it and who didn't, laid out over the ant footage: that was some great classic science fiction-horror, reminding me of everything from The War of the Worlds to other "animals attack!" stories. I wish this hadn't bombed so badly that Bass didn't get to direct again, because even though it's certainly flawed, it's a really interesting and unique film. Well, at least there are plenty of movies and movie posters with Bass visuals.
The alternate ending: I love how I could semi-follow it at first (okay, the ants will eventually build "human farms" the way we build ant farms, got it) and then it just got weirder and weirder and weirder from there.
From:
no subject
Yeah, the alternate ending started out as a very trippy look at how ants will rule... and then there were people with no mouths and flying people and a chimpanzee playing chess and I think a woman gave birth to the sun???
From:
no subject
!!!
Is this watchable? (and were they easier to direct than humans?)
From:
no subject
I was unable to make any of the shooting, but they brought in a bug wrangler who had a little crush on me, mostly I think because I adored the Australian giant prickly stick insects. A couple weeks after filming concluded, I received a package at the office with holes punched in it and a billion stickers saying THIS SIDE UP and LIVE INSECT and HANDLE WITH CARE. I knew immediately what it was and who sent it. Indeed, it was my very own pet stick insect, with instructions for care.
I should explain for the benefit of others that they look like the alien in aliens and were the length of my entire hand. I immediately went on a stroll around my workplace (Jim Henson Studios) knocking on office doors and then suddenly displaying my hand. Several people basically levitated several feet in the air, then shot straight backwards. Eventually the sound of screams and emails got through and everyone started locking their doors.
I had the stick insect for several years, until I went away for a weekend and there was an unexpected cold snap. Alas. It was a delightful pet.
From:
no subject