THEM! Part 1 of the 4 days of Halloween
THEM (1954)
This is a true pest control nightmare, imagine this, waking up to find Giant killer ants tearing though our homes with a vengeance! This Classic was released to the silver screen in 1954. The film was originally formatted to be in 3D and WarnerColor but due to a camera malfunction Warner Bros. stuck with black and white...i'm glad they did!! These Giant Bugs have inspired many to follow, such as "The Fly", Mothra and of course in todays video game culture, Fallout 3 and Biohazzard!
This film starts with New Mexico State Police Sergeant, Ben Peterson investigates the disappearance of a vacationing FBI agent and his wife, the Ellinsons. After fining their little girl wandering the desert near Alamogordo, New Mexico. The little girl is found in a state of shock.
FBI agent Robert Graham (Ellinson's Partner) is sent in to assist in the investigation. The Ellinson trailer is found pulled apart by some great force, with a single strange track near the wreckage. When the FBI is unable to identify the track, they attract the attention of Doctors Harold and Pat Medford, a father/daughter team of entomologists from the Department of Agriculture.
When Doctor Medford arrives, he has a theory, but will not disclose this theory until he runs an experiment on the little girl. Doctor Medford has the little girl smell the contents of a vial which contains formic acid. After smelling the contents she is freed from her from her catatonic state, she screams "Them! Them!"
Returning to the destroyed trailer with Peterson, Graham and his daughter, Medford's theory is given its final proof when the group encounters a patrol of foraging ants, mutated by atomic radiation to the size of automobiles. The group kill one of the ants with a machine gun after realizing that their pistols have no effect. After aiming for the antennae on Medford's advice that they were helpless without them.
The Air Force is brought in, led by General O'Brien, which locates the ants' nest and exterminates the inhabitants with poison gas. The younger Dr. Medford, who accompanied the army into the nest, finds evidence that two young queens have hatched and flown away to establish new colonies. Trying to avoid a general panic, the government covertly monitors and investigates any reports of unusual activities as sightings of "flying saucers". One of the queens ends up in the hold of an ocean-going freighter loaded with sugar, which is then overrun by the ants and subsequently sunk by a Navy cruiser. From the rantings of an alcoholic the other queen is finally tracked to the Los Angeles storm sewer system, forcing the Army to openly declare martial law and launch a major assault. Peterson rescues two young boys trapped by the ants in a sewer tunnel, but at the cost of his own life. The nest's queen and egg chamber are destroyed with flamethrowers, but the senior Dr. Medford issues a grim warning that the atomic genie has been let out of the bottle, and further horrors may await mankind.
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