Empire of the Ants - Kino Cult

Regarding B-movie monster mayhem, the late great Bert I. Gordon was a legend. With passable scripts, he could bring big helpings of Horror and Science Fiction schlock to life creating big creature effects all on his own. From Puppet People to Amazing Colossal Man to Earth vs The Spider, Gordon was a singular DIY talent. He also had a weird love for taking the bare basics of H.G. Welles stories making a daffy creature feature out of them. While taking the title and a little of the concept of Welles’ Empire of the Ants, Gordon actually delivered something resembling a third adaptation of Welles’ other iconic story Food of the Gods - and it’s a doozy! 

Starring the Queen of Mean Joan Collins, our story features a bunch of people stuck on a secluded swamp island in Florida. Collins plays Marylin Fryser, a land developer with a questionable record as she is about to dupe a boatload of rubes into buying stakes in junk properties. While the con starts out swimmingly, it goes south when it turns out that the island is infested with ants that have grown to gigantic proportions because of radioactive waste contamination (the barrel is sitting right there on the beach for anyone to enjoy!). Now the survivors must traverse the hellish jungle swamp to find the last boat off the island. 

My colleague Mr. Duarte reviewed this film with Scream Factory’s two-film Blu-ray of Empire of the Ants and Jaws of Satan, and we very much agree - this film is a load of highly entertaining hokum. H.G. Welles did write a story about deadly ants called Empire of the Ants but this film bares little resemblance to that tale beyond the title and the insect. In fact, this film plays closer to Food of the Gods where an unknown substance causes creatures to grow to unfathomable sizes. In this film, that substance is radioactive waste. But this wasn’t a new story for Gordon. He used it as a basis for Village of the Giants, the directly titled Food of the Gods, and the premise is damned similar to his 1957 giant cricket epic Beginning of the End. 

Shockingly enough, this movie actually kinda works. Gordon clearly didn’t have a lot of budget to work with, most of the “giant” ants were optical effects. Simple close-ups of ants shot in an ant farm (you can see them walking on the glass) superimposed near our actors reacting to what they “see.” It’s a technique he used time and again. And like Beginning of the End Gordon even used a scale diorama or postcards for an effect where the ants can be clearly seen crawling into the sky! While these moments could be seen as shortcomings to some, they’re actually endearing and add some flavor to the fun. 

But to Gordon’s credit, he actually manages this story pretty well. He steadily builds suspense peppering the story with little nods and winks before our big ants attack. Our characters, such as they are, are well drawn and you get the time to find out who you want to see live or die. You immediately know an elderly couple will be ant fodder soon enough! But the film becomes a well-paced trek for survival leading to one bonkers of a final act! Hell, even the score by Dana Kaproff manages to ape the vibe of John William’s ominous work on Jaws so you know when the ants are on the hunt. 

In the simplest terms, Empire of the Ants is junk food cinema. You can’t take it seriously, it’s just there to entertain and put a smile on your face. That’s pretty well true for all of Bert’s films, but there’s something particularly special about his creature features. As with the director’s initials, you can’t go wrong when Bert I. Gordon goes BIG! 

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray
Bert I. Gordon’s Empire of the Ants attacks Blu-ray for the second time with a new single-disc release from Kino Cult. The eleventh film in the line, the film is pressed on a Region A BD-50 disc and comes housed in a standard case with reversible insert art and slipcover. The disc loads to a static image main menu with standard navigation options.

Without any other information to confirm, I have to believe that Kino Cult’s release of Empire of the Ants uses the older master Scream Factory had at hand. The welcome “however” to that equation is for this release, this film gets its own BD-50 disc with better encoding giving it a much sharper appearance. It still features some of the same blemishes, and the same instances of slight speckling, but the bitrate comes in higher and the film grain appears better resolved and not nearly as noisy. It’s still a little thick around those optical effects, but that’s to be expected. Colors are healthy with nice clean primaries and skin tones. Black levels are nice and dark, maybe favoring deep brown, but image depth is impressive throughout. I for one would have loved a 4K disc, but as is this is an excellent presentation and a fine upgrade from nearly a decade ago. 

On the audio side we have an excellent DTS-HD MA 2.0 track. At a guess, again, this sounds the same as the one Scream Factory used for their disc. Which isn’t bad at all. It’s a great mix. Dialog is clean and clear, as absurd as a lot of it may be, but it’s never at odds with any other element in the soundscape. The chirping of the ants is a nice creepy dissonant sound effect and again that Dana Kaproff score certainly adds some mood to the atmosphere. Free of any serious hiss or pops or defects, it’s a solid track. This is impressive since during production the sound man threw the original audio recordings in the swamp during an argument with Gordon. So the whole film had to be looped - any dialog and rubber mouth issues are forgivable. 

On the bonus features side, we get a little old with a little new. The Scream Factory disc never had much either so we’re not missing anything. The original Bert. I Gordon commentary returns and it’s a great track. Actually, any B.I.G. commentary is worth listening. He may not have made great films but you can tell he loved making them and has some great stories to share. For the new commentary David Del Valle and Michael Varrati team up for a very fun track, it’s always nice when you can tell someone is a fan and admires the work - even if it’s a piece of schlock like Empire of the Ants! Definitely give that one a listen.

• Audio Commentary featuring David Del Valle and Michael Varrati
• Audio Commentary featuring Bert. I. Gordon
• Trailer

No one is going to accuse Bert I. Gordon’s Empire of the Ants of being a truly great piece of motion picture filmmaking. It’s pure hokum and that’s why it’s so fun to watch almost fifty years later! B.I.G. was a singular talent for making people and critters big and it could be argued his best efforts were his last two creature features Food of the Gods and Empire of the Ants. While there is a sad lack of Joan Collins slapping anyone, let alone slapping an ant, the film is good creepy fun. And Kino Cult delivers a great new Blu-ray disc! We get a solid-looking transfer with suitable audio, and a new audio commentary to join B.I.G.’s own track to expand the bonus features just a bit. A fun disc from start to finish - Recommended