"Them!"

This week I'll be walking you through 1954's Them!
The film opens on two policemen driving through the deserts of New Mexico with a small airplane flying overhead. The plane is radioing to the officers in the car that he's spotted a small child wandering through the desert alone and that they should go save her. When they intercept the small girl she stares off into the distance and doesn't seem to respond to their presence at all. She's carrying a broken porcelain doll and appears to be in some sort of shock. Even this early in the film we are able to learn some very important lessons. One- child actors in the 50's were even worse than the child actors of modern times so they weren't allowed to speak. Two- New Mexico policemen in the 50's wore the cutiest lil' bow ties.
The officers put the little girl in the squad car and begin to drive back to town but on the way they find the remains of an airstream camper that appears to have been ripped open like a tin can. No one is around but they do find blood as well as scraps of fabric that match the little girl's dress. After having an ambulance pick the little girl up they head down the road to ask the nearest shop owner if he may have seen anything unusual. When they get to the shop they find it to be torn to shreds just like the camper. They look around and find a shot gun that is bent completely in half, a cash register left completely untouched, and the store's sugar has been torn open and ravaged. They later find the shop owner's bloodied body at the bottom of the basement stairs. A strange animal foot print is found in the sand near the trailer and an autopsy of the storekeepers body reveals a high concentration of formic acid. These clues stump local police so the FBI is brought in. The FBI finds a specialist from the Department of Agriculture, an eccentric little man named Dr. Medford, who brings along his beautiful daughter, Dr. Pat Medford. It can only be assumed that Pat was brought along to fill the film's hitherto lack of sexy dames.
The Dr. Medfords inspect the evidence and begin asking questions about when the last atomic bomb testing was done in the area. They then go to visit the little girl in the hospital to ask her some questions but find that she has still not spoken a word. On a hunch Dr. Medford passes a vile of formic acid under her nose and she springs from her chair screaming, "THEM! THEM! THEM! THEM! THEM!" The police take the Dr. Medfords into the desert to inspect the site of the destroyed trailer. Once there it becomes clear that the doctors have a good idea of what has been doing all the damage, but they are very reluctant to reveal it. When Pat wanders off into the desert alone she is attacked by a giant... a giant... a giant... ANT! Yes a giant ant! Scary Scary! The giant 8 foot tall furry ant puppet just bobs from side to side rather than moving forward to snatch Pat, giving the police plenty of time to shoot at it. Dr. Medford Sr. screams that they should shoot the ant's antennae to disable it since it's exoskeleton is too thick for the bullets to penetrate. HeHe. I said penetrate. They manage to kill the adorable ant creature that's meant to look terrifying and save poor beautiful Pat.
With their worst fears realized- those fears being that nuclear bomb testing in the desert in 1945 created a race of radioactive carnivorous giant ants- the Medford doctors urge the police to help them locate the ant's nest. Flying over the desert they quickly locate the giant opening to the giant nest where the giant ants live. Giant. Then they devise a plan to set bombs (regular bombs not nuclear- or is it nukeular?) off in the entrance of the nest and then release cyanide gas into the tunnels to finish the job. With this done two police officers, along with the gorgeous Pat, grab some flame throwers, put on some gas max, and go down into the nest to see if they were successful in exterminating the entire colony. Of course, when they get down into the holes they find that some of the ants are still alive. Duh. Luckily the ants are no match for the flame throwers, nor are the eggs they find in the queen's chamber. Pat notices though that tow of the eggs were hatched very recently and this worries her so she snaps a few photos. Dr. Medford Sr. finds that those two egg cases had belonged to queen ants who may have had time to escape the lair and venture off to form their own colonies.
One of the queens enters a cargo ship at night while the crew is away and begins to build her nest. Somehow no one aboard the ship notices a gigantic ant nest filled with huge ant eggs before the ship sets sail. The eggs hatch while the boat is at sea and the crew is able to signal the navy before they're all killed. Thankfully the Navy is able to sink the ship before it reaches land, but there is still another queen at large.
Near Los Angeles bodies start piling up and freight trains carrying sugar start reporting overnight break-ins. Finally the other colony is discovered to be based in the sewer system beneath the city. The press is assembled and martial law is proclaimed. Members of the press start shouting their questions and one reporter dares to ask the brilliant question, "has the cold war gotten hot?" The mayor of LA explains to the press and the public just what the problem is and chaos breaks out. The military is brought in to keep the peace and help fight the evil mutant ants. There is a slight chance that two children ran into the sewer to hide from the ants (not knowing that's where they live) and an even slighter chance that if they did run into the sewers that they're still alive. So. rather than trying to set the sewer systems ablaze or fill them with cyanide gas to save the entire city of Los Angeles, some members of the military drive into the sewers to find and rescue the children who are more than likely to already be dead.
Of course, the children are found, alive, along with the egg chamber and central hub of the nest. They find that no new queens have been hatched yet and that other new nests forming elsewhere is not likely to happen. They set the nest ablaze with more flame throwers and the threat is believed to be over.
An army officer begs the question, "If these monsters got started as a result of the first atomic bomb in 1945, what about all the others that have been exploded since then?" Dr. Medford wisely responds, "Nobody knows. When man entered the atomic age he opened a door into a new world. What we eventually find in that new world nobody can predict."
Cue music. The camera turns to the ants being burned alive.
The end.

"Orca: The Killer Whale"

This week I'll be summarizing 1977's Orca: The Killer Whale.
This film was created in the height of the Jaws era and was meant to try to capture some of the hype. Appropriately the film begins with some aquatic scientists diving off the coast of Newfoundland and being stalked by a great white shark. At the same time the shark is stalking the divers, it is also being stalked by a group of fishermen. One of the divers falls off of his boat and the sharks barrels forward to snatch him up. Suddenly an Orca appears as if from no where to intercept the great white and kill him. Witnessing the strength and ability of the Orca sparks an interest in the fisherman who was trying to catch the shark.
The fisherman, Nolan, decides to try to catch a live Orca to sell to a theme park even though he has no experience catching live sea creatures and really knows next to nothing about whales. He builds an enclosure to keep the whale once he's captured it and heads out with his crew. They stumble upon a pair of Orcas swimming along and decide to harpoon one to get it up onto the boat. They miss the male Orca and instead hit the female. The harpoon does much more damage to the female than intended and she goes berserk. When they're finally able to pull her up onto the deck of the boat and see how much blood she's loosing, she gives birth to an underdeveloped plastic whale fetus.
Seeing his wife and until then unborn child murdered in front of him sends the male Orca into a murderous rampage. The whale starts ramming himself into the bottom of the boat and the crew scramble to stop him. One of the men climbs out to cut the rope holding the female on deck, releasing her body back into the water. The whale uses this opportunity to jump out of the water and snatch the crew member from the pole and kill him. Then the Orca pushes his dead female's body along and follows the boat back to the bay. Once he finds where Nolan lives he starts terrorizing the little fishing village. He goes around scaring away all the fish, bashing holes in boats, and even setting fire to the harbor's dock complex. (That's right- the whale set the docks on fire) The other fishermen demand that Nolan go out to hunt to Orca down and put an end to this chaos. Even a wise old Indian man comes and says that the whale must be killed.
Before he's able to make up his mind, the Orca starts terrorizing Nolan's other crew members. He knocks down the house, which unfortunately is built on stilts above the water, of a female crew member played by Bo Derek, and bites off one of her (beautiful) legs. Nolan piles his remaining crew into his boat and heads out to sea. The Orca leads the boat to the icy north, picking off crew members along the way. Once very far north the whale pushes a small iceberg into the side of the boat causing it to capsize. Nolan rushes out onto a sheet of ice to flee the sinking boat but the whale starts punching holes through the thin sheet. The whale tips the sheet up and Nolan falls in the water and tries to escape death by grabbing onto the Orca's tail. The Orca flips his tail suddenly forward, pitching Nolan into an iceberg, killing him. Nolan tumbles down into the water and the Orca swims happily away.
The end.