Empire of the Ants (1977): adapted by Bert I. Gordon and Jack Turley from the story by H.G. Wells; directed by Bert I. Gordon; starring Joan Collins (Marilyn), Robert Lansing (Dan), John David Carson (Joe), Jacqueline Scott (Margaret), and Pamela Shoop (Coreen Bradford): Not a good film at all, but magnificently entertaining. The ants only look 'real' when they really are real, and even then the fact that they're actually in a glass-walled container means that the composite shots seem to show ants walking on air, sometimes at right angles to the ground. Oh, well.
Very loosely based on a story by H.G. Wells, Empire of the Ants follows an ill-fated group of people touring swamp-land-for-sale in the Florida Everglades with Joan Collins as the saleswoman. Unfortunately, radioactive waste that looks a lot like silver spray paint has caused ants to grow man-sized. Much death ensues until the movie shifts from rampaging bugs to cool, calculating bugs with 30 minutes to go. Schlockmeister Bert I. Gordon writes and directs with his usual enthusiasm. Recommended as an enjoyable bad movie.
The Haunting (1963): adapted by Nelson Gidding from Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House; directed by Robert Wise; starring Julie Harris (Eleanor Lance), Claire Bloom (Theodora), Richard Johnson (Dr. John Markway), and Russ Tamblyn (Luke Sanderson):
The Haunting isn't as good as the novel it adapts, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. How could it be? The novel rates with me as the greatest haunted-house novel ever written. The movie is very good. And I think the movie benefited from the relatively low budget handed to director Robert Wise. Wise elected to keep the hauntings even more off-screen than they are in the novel, inspiring dread instead with shadows and strange noises and booming knocks at the door.
The cast is first-rate. Julie Harris' Eleanor Vance is the dark heart of the movie. A shut-in forced to care for her ailing mother for years, she has now been released by her mother's death and her own realization that she herself has never truly lived. A poltergeist incident when she was a girl causes Dr. John Markway to invite her to help him investigate Hill House, the malign structure where doors refuse to stay open and "whatever walks there, walks alone." Along with the apparently psychic Theodora and house-owner Luke, Eleanor will investigate the bizarre properties of Hill House. Is there a rational explanation?
Stephen King's The Shining riffs on The Haunting of Hill House, especially in its combination of a deteriorating personality and a malign environment that encourages that deterioration. The movie and the novel have influenced many other works over the years. The movie on its own (movie qua movie?) remains a gem, a sad and horrifying gem that remains as mysterious about the source of its hauntings at the conclusion as it was at the beginning. Maybe moreso. Is Hill House haunted by ghosts or is it itself some sort of malign and inhuman distortion in reality? Answer this yourself. Highly recommended.
