(1972)
Dir - Bert I. Gordon
Overall: MEH
Bert I. Gordon, (one of the primary kings of giant monster B-movies), shifted gears with the trippy and psychological horror film Nec'ro•man'cy, (re-released and re-cut as The Witching in 1983). Staring an "I'm only doing this for the money" Orson Welles slipping into a British accent, as well as actual British horror mainstay Pamela Franklin doing an American accent, it has moments of unintended silliness and an overall goofy presentation. Most odd is the snappy editing which eliminates most establishing shots and cuts right to the beginning of every conversation. While this attempt to trim the fat is refreshing for an era where sluggish pacing was the norm, it also gives the movie a jolting feel, made doubly problematic by the fact that much of it ends up dragging anyway. There are creepy ideas adherent in Gordon and Gail March's script about a cult leader trying to do occult leader things to bring his dead son back to life, but it is too disjointed and awkward to deliver the proper chills.
(1976)
Overall: WOOF
The second adaptation of H.G. Wells' 1904 novel The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth from writer/director Bert I. Gordon, (the first being 1965's Village of the Giants), The Food of the Gods, (H.G. Wells' The Food of the Gods), is an abysmal giant animal movie that makes over-sized rats, chickens, wasps, and worms come off as ridiculous as you can imagine. Gordon had stepped away from such movies for eleven years at this point and the dated special effects are but one problem, utilizing the age old tricks of normal-sized animals interacting with miniatures and spliced together with the actors pretending to fend off against them. Throw in some children in rat suites and unconvincing closeups and it becomes a consistently laughable film and one that seems downright embarrassing from a special effects perspective, especially considering that Star Wars was in production at the time of its release. Gordon's screenplay is worse than the visuals though; not insultingly bad, but just lazy and hare-brained in its environmental angle and poorly thought-out characters. The following year's Empire of the Ants would utilize the same tactics and suffer from similar ailments, but it would fare better in comparison for anyone in the mood for a bad over-sized monster double feature.
(1977)
Overall: MEH
Filmed in part in the Florida Everglades, Empire of the Ants was the final "giant creature" movie of director Ber I. Gordon's career and is also a loose adaptation of H.G. Wells' 1905 short story of the same name. While some of the shots all too clearly broadcast the budget's shortcomings, the film still works well as a special effects showcase. Fusing some of the tricks that Gordon used on 1957 film Beginning of the End, (mixing over-sized closeups of the ants with actors and miniatures, plus spastically wiggling fake insect limbs around), all manage to do the trick. Unfortunately, Gordon and co-screenwriter Jack Turley's script leaves everything to be desired, loading it up with one forgettable character after the other and taking a full thirty minutes until any oversized bug mayhem goes down. Even with A-lister Joan Collins on board and a third act revelation that makes good on the opening narrations promise that ants use mind-altering pheromones to get what they want, the story endlessly drags. A Jaws/Invasion of the Body Snatchers hybrid sounds intriguing on paper, but the whole thing only comes alive in all too infrequent fits and starts.
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