And now it's time to return to
our roots. We're gonna go way back today, with one of the prime movers in the daikaiju
genre. Released the year after the seminal (uh-huh-huh, he said "seminal") Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, Them holds a special place in the
hearts of genre fans. Why? Because, stupid, it was released the year after Beast From
20,000 Fathoms. It must be good, right?
I remember watching Them at age seven. One of my mother's Adult Basic Education students was a long time sci-fi/horror fan and was kind enough to lend us his copy. I remember my father fussing over me, saying the movie would scare me, because it had scared him once, long ago, when the world was young.
I don't remember being scared so much as being unnerved, though I didn't know that word yet. Years later, I can see why. Them could be a pretty suspenseful movie, as long as you don't know that giant ants are responsible for all the carnage.
Oops. There goes the suspense.
Them opens in New Mexico. Coppers Ben (James Whitmore, future star of Planet of the Apes) and Ed (Chris Drake) discover a little girl (Sandy Descher) wondering around through the desert in a state of deep shock. Thankfully, the girl remains mute to the trooper's questions; little girls can have such damned annoying voices...
Backtracking the girl's path, the troopers discover a decimated trailer with no parents in sight. The only thing that seems to have been taken is sugar cubes. Leaving the trailer to forensics (or, what passes for forensics in the middle of New Mexico), the two go to ask the local merchant if he's seen anything. They arrive a bit to late. Gramps' general store has been ripped open, too. Again, the only thing unaccounted for is sugar. They find Gramps in the basement with a broken back, clutching a shotgun that's been bent in half.
Breaking a well know horror movie convention, Ben leaves Ed at the store because Ed wants to poke around. Ed, in turn, falls victim to the Unseen Menace in the desert. Bye, Ed. You broke one of the rules. Stupid.
Turns out the little girl's daddy was an FBI man. Enter Special Agent Bob Graham (James Arness, a.k.a. The Thing From Another World). Also a weird ass footprint was lifted out of the sand near the trailer. Enter Doctor Harold Medford (Edmund Gwenn) and his hot, leggy daughter, Dr. Patricia Medford (Joan Weldon). The Doctors Medford have a theory about What's Going On Around Here, they just won't tell anybody. Not that it matters. If you've seen this movie's cover art you already know what's going on.
Giant ants, mutated thanks to the atomic tests at White Sands, are at the bottom of all this. They've built a colony in the middle of the desert, the average drone measuring 9 feet long. They're carnivorous, of course (what else is there to eat in the New Mexico desert?), and the colony has just begun to produce new queens.
Them is famous as the Best of the Bug Movies. Does it disserve to be? As a Bug movie, it's certainly better then The Deadly Mantis (but so are most forms of torture). As a movie movie, Them is no big whoop. It can hardly play the originality card. This is still a year after Beast, remember? And if it tried to play the Horror Movie card today it'd be laughed around the corner. Its taglines ("An Endless Terror! A Nameless Horror!") ring pretty hollow today.
What it can play is the ingenuity card. Instead of using expensive stop-motion animation to bring its ants to life, Them's producers actually built 9-foot long ant puppets. It shows, too. The ants limited range of motion (head down, antennae wiggle, head up, leg moves, head down) marks their marionette status better then day-glow spray paint. Plus, no more then 2 ants are on screen at a time. I'm asking way too much here, but a nice army of ants marching down the street, overturning cars and chewing on the slow people, would've been fun to see.
At least there's no telltale, blue screen splice mark. Those get real annoying, real fast. Especially when the monsters try to eat people.
As acting goes, there's nothing spectacular to report. The manly, manly, men are manly, manly men, fawning over Dr. Patricia ("Pat"), and getting annoyed when she uses anything larger then a 2 syllable word. Damn women-folk and their book learnin'. Pat is the only character I found appealing, but then, she is pretty hot.
Them has a fundamental problem with its script. Writers Ted Sherdeman and Russell S. Hughes have everyone so busy trying to kill the ants they forget the character development. Which is fine, I guess, considering the long track record of botched side stories in monster movies. And it's always a love story, too. That's the simplest way to a character's character.
With no love story, indeed, no character development of any kind, Them doesn't have much to offer in the way of humans. But, if you're reading this, you probably could give less of a crap about the puny humans. For you guys, there's plenty of mayhem once the marines are called in. It's not the grandest giant monster movie ever made, but it'll keep you interested and kill some good time.
