What’s a picnic without ants?
This Memorial Day weekend, as the woods resonate with the eerie, UFO-like drone of Brood X cicadas, we direct our thoughts to the quintessential giant insect invasion classic – marked by equally distinctive, otherworldly calls – “Them!” (1954).
In the age of atomic anxiety, gigantic mutated ants emerge from the New Mexico desert to wreak havoc in Los Angeles. James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, and James Arness put in an order for a whole lot of RAID, and Fess Parker secures for himself the role of Davy Crockett with one short but memorable scene. You’ll have to watch fast for Leonard Nimoy, Dick York, Richard Deacon, William Schallert, and many others.
Released four months before “Godzilla,” drive-in thrills didn’t come any bigger than “Them!” The “Wilhelm scream” gets a good workout in this one. If Ridley Scott didn’t watch “Them!” before he made “Alien,” I’ll wander through the storm drains of Los Angeles with a box full of sugar cubes.
I hope you’ll join us as we flap our mandibles about “Them!,” on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, this Memorial Day weekend AT A SPECIAL TIME. Leave your sweets and formic acid in the comments section, as we livestream with our flamethrowers, to the full extent that Facebook allows, this SUNDAY EVENING AT 7:00 EDT!