Empire of the Ants (1977) on Netflix
PG19771h 29mAdventureHorrorSci-Fi
Marilyn Fryser, a Florida land developer, takes buyers by boat to Dreamland Shores, swampland she says will soon be developed. Radioactive waste has leaked, and the ants have grown enormous.
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- Netflix1.4/5
- IMDb4.4/106,224 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes10%
Trailer
Plot summary
Barrels marked as radioactive waste are dumped into the ocean from a boat. One washes ashore on a Florida beach and leaks onto the sand, where ants are crawling in it. In the same area, the land developer Marilyn Fryser is taking a group of prospective buyers by boat to view a property she calls Dreamland Shores, telling the buyers the swampland will soon be developed. The buyers doubt that the land is worth much. When the group lands on the island, they find the ants have grown to enormous size, and some of the visitors are attacked by the mutated insects.
Cast
- Brooke Palanceas Christine Graham
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Empire of the Ants (1977)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- According to actor Robert Pine, one scene required the cast to fall out of a rowboat into the river, where there were apparently live alligators; Bert I. Gordon had promised a protective cage, but it never arrived.
- Even though filming took place in Florida, autumn temperatures fell to freezing, and at one point the cold was so bad it dislocated actress Pamela Susan Shoop's jaw during a screaming scene; she was sent to hospital for treatment.
- For the giant ants, Bert I. Gordon placed live insects in a miniature set lined with still photographs of the location and let them crawl; the trick's flaws show when ants appear to crawl off a sugar refinery and walk vertically into the sky.
- Actress Pamela Susan Shoop recalled that the remote Everglades swamp location's restrooms were about a half-hour away by speedboat, so a bathroom trip meant everyone waited an hour.
- The attacking ants were large rubber mock-ups wiggled in front of the camera by crew members, and Joan Collins said she disliked working with the props because they bumped and scratched the actors, herself included.
