Ants! (1977)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
A lakeside hotel is about to be sold off but before that can happen an outbreak of poison ants start killing people. This made for TV film is yet another in a long line of "when nature attacks" films but it's not too bad as long as you don't take it too serious. Suzanne Somers, Robert Foxworth, Lynda Day George, Brian Dennehy and Myrna Loy (!) all have pretty good parts in the film so the familiar cast certainly keeps things going, although all of them have seen better days. As with a lot of films like this, it's best to turn your brain off and just enjoy what's going on in front of your eyes. Once again we get a speech how this is all our fault due to the poisons we use to kill insects. Yes, we are to blame for the ant outbreak because we previously tried to kill them. While the story might be simple and rather brain dead, it does make for a mildly entertaining film. The special effects of all the ants are rather weak as in most cases it seems like something black is just sprinkled around to look like ants. There are a few scenes where we see close ups of real ants eating a butterfly but there's never anything too graphic. The biggest problem with the film is that the ants are never scary and not once did I feel threatened even though people were dying from them. AKA: It Happened at Lakewood Manor.
