Halloween 2K26 - Ants (1977)

When most people think about a movie about ants, I'm sure they think back to DreamWorks' 1998 Antz about a young ant having an existential crisis, or maybe they think of the 1950s monster movie Them! about nuclear-radiated ants. But when I think about ants, my mind always goes back to 1977's Ants (also known as It Happened at Lakewood Manor), a TV movie about guests at a mountain resort that is taken over by killer ants.

Okay, let's get the awkward part of this discussion out of the way first. The only reason Ants resides in my brain as much as it does is because of its VHS cover box, one that my young pre-teen eyes could not stop looking at.

Yea, that's one way to boost your rentals.

For years, I'd look over the box, but I never rented the film. I didn't know much about it, and it seemed out of place in the horror section at Blockbuster. Despite the provocative front cover, I knew it wouldn't live up to my expectations, and I was right. I mean, I didn't know it at the time, but this was a TV movie from the 1970s. However, sometime in the mid-1990s, I was visiting my grandfather and Ants was on TV. I only saw the second half, but I thought it was actually a pretty decent movie! And for the last thirty years, I still think about Ants more than anyone should.

A few years ago, I saw it was streaming free on YouTube, but I didn't watch it. I was scared to ruin this strange little memory of mine. But a few months ago, I saw Ants had received a Blu-ray release, and it was rather cheap, so I decided to buy a copy and finally sit down and watch the film all the way through. It also helped that the cover art was reversible, and it featured that iconic VHS box art I so fondly recalled.

So, how does Ants hold up forty years after its release?

Better than you'd expect. The cast has some familiar faces such as Suzanne Somers (Three's Company), Brian Dennehy (First Blood), and Lynda Day George (Mission: Impossible). I'm sure the rest of the cast would be more recognizable for folks who are a bit older than me, but these were the faces I knew.

Disaster-type movies are always a bit predictable. I think it is just part of the genre. You can't have a huge disaster (be it ecological, biological, etc.) without a happy setting that is slowly ruined as folks try to survive. Being that this was a TV movie, the script is extremely predictable and almost simplistic, but in a good way. I feel like movies these days often try to be something they are not. They try and interweave messages and complexities and buck the genre's conventions. This film is exactly what you think it is: a bunch of people get attacked by ants and try to survive. There is no underlying message or moral, and I appreciate that.

One of the most effective parts of this film is the use of real ants and the natural reaction that you have while watching it. Every itch feels like an ant, and it's almost unsettling as your brain tells you danger is near and that you need to swipe at every tingle.

According to Wikipedia, the filming took place at The College Inn in Qualicum Beach, British Columbia. The budget was a million dollars, so just under six million in today's dollars.

Do I recommend you rush out and watch Ants? Nah. It's very much a product of its time, so unless you are looking for a low-budget 70s disaster film, I'd probably skip this one. The 70s had Earthquake and The Poseidon Adventure, which are much better disaster films with significantly higher budgets.