By Geno McGahee
They don’t make “made for TV” movies like this anymore. Do they make made for TV movies at all? Well, not really. They don’t make horror entries like this one or the others that were so common in the 1970s.
ANTS concerns this lakeside hotel that is going through some construction, but the crew digs up a colony of angry ants that have been negatively affected by the pesticides that have been dropped on them over the years. They are now toxic and angry.
Mike Carr (Robert Foxworth) is the lead of the construction crew and when two of his men are killed, he begins his own investigation. He doesn’t buy the “virus” theory that White (Steve Franken), a state investigator suggests. He believes that the ants are causing the problem, but White laughs and takes a couple of them and holds them. 1-0 White…for now.
It is later revealed that the ants are only dangerous and violent in groups. White will find that out soon enough as he storms outside into the colony and is killed by the thousands of insects. I was quite impressed with the ability of Franken to lie still as these ants covered him from head to toe. What a great actor. At one point, as the ants were entering his mouth, he made a slight expression, but other than that, he was very convincing.
There is another villain. Tony Fleming (Gerald Gordon) is a casino tycoon and he has his eyes on the hotel. He brings along his hot girlfriend, Gloria (Suzanne Somers), and attempts to buy the hotel, in not the most honest way. As a villain, you know that he will not walk away from this movie alive.
In the end, we have the hero, the hero’s girl, and the villain all stuck in the hotel, on the top floor, and the entire place packed with deadly ants. (WARNING: Predictable Spoiler) Fleming cannot handle the ants and decides that he is going to try to jump into the large swimming pool from the top floor of the hotel. His jump was incredibly pathetic. He didn’t come anywhere near the pool. In his defense, he had a lot on his mind. He was covered in ants and Suzanne Somers was just killed. He was going to go to bed with ant bites and blue balls. Perhaps it was a suicide now that I’m thinking about it.
ANTS (1977) is a really fun made for TV movie. It had its fair share of cheese and overacting, but I highly recommend it.
Rating: 7/10
