I was initially going to open this
review with a discussion of how the level of trust shown in the
Government makes this film dated and a product of it's time. I was
going to say how, if the movie was made today, it would clearly show
the Government as being far less competent. But then I remembered the
recent Godzilla remake which showed the Government acting in a
rational manner to protect its citizens, and decided that maybe this
example of “dating” doesn't really apply to giant monster movies.
Apparently people do trust that their leaders would put petty
politics aside and do the right thing if a major city was being
ripped apart by a creature the size of a skyscraper.
This is generally regarded as the
second Giant Monster movie, the first being The Beast from 20,000
Fathoms. So it was presented to an audience that didn't really
know to expect an army of Giant Ants seeking to spread and destroy
all of humanity. This makes the opening much more subtle. Although
many later movies about Giant Monsters hide the monster for some
time, this film still opens by showing you the damage it's done to
build up the scare factor. However, in Them! we see two
police officers finding a ransacked trailer and a little girl who is
too scared to talk beyond yelling the film's title, all alone in the
desert. Obviously, to filmgoers not yet familiar with the genre, the
implication is that one or more perfectly human, or perhaps
super-human, villains were at fault.
If there is a distinction other than
special effects between the monsters in this film and modern Kaiju
it's that there's a real sense of awe that such creatures exist.
They're only 8-foot, quite small by Giant Monster standards, but
still shocking to the characters. Once again, I find it useful to
compare it to the recent Godzilla remake. Because while in
that movie, the main characters find out that giant monsters exist by
sitting down in a meeting room and being told, in this movie, they
encounter one, and still have trouble believing that such a
thing could exist, even when the first one has been killed and is
literally lying there in front of them. This does seem the more
believable reaction. I know if I was there I would be screaming “How
the hell can is legs support it's body? Cut them open, we need to
know what in the hell they're made of! Titanium?”
I won't act like the performances
aren't hammy. It's a monster movie from the 50s, but generally, they
work, and the actors seem to be trying decently. It also helps that
this is the rare monster movie which doesn't try to make the monsters
invincible. Gunshots at their antenna kill the first one encountered
almost immediately, and poison and fire are able to kill them as
well. They're not a danger to humanity because they can only be
killed by a super-weapon or another gigantic monster. They're a
danger because of the risk that they could spread and establish
additional colonies.
If this movie has a weakness, I would
say that it's the simplicity. There's a general assumption that
8-foot long ants will still behave in exactly the same way as their
smaller cousins, despite having clearly mutated a great deal. Beyond
that, while I don't claim to be an expert on the 1950s US military,
the soldiers who assault the ant colony seem to be going in quite
light, wearing no armor other than their helmets. I find this a bit
unlikely, given that they're carrying rocket launchers and
flamethrowers that they fully intend to use. But, I really can't
call a movie out on such points in the days of Michael Bay, who would
probably end the movie with a one-on-one duel between Optimus Prime
and the Queen Ant.
The ants making noise is actually a
case of science marching on since the movie was made. There was an
ongoing debate at the time concerning whether or not ants could make
noise, as microphones sensitive enough to tell had yet to be
invented. Either way though, the filmmakers made the right choice.
The sounds made by the ants is otherworldly, and I imagine I would be
terrified by anything chasing me which made that sound. The fact
that they don't make sounds in the real world matters very little to
me.
Is this movie going to scare you?
Probably not. To a modern viewer, it's in the same category as
Universal Monsters, perhaps a rung below Frankenstein.
However, it's fun, and it definitely deserves its status as a
classic.
No comments:
Post a Comment