Fangs for the Memories:
Apparently, the ’70s weren’t content to give us shag carpeting, disco, fondue sets, airbrushed vans, and bell bottoms—they also gave us creature features in which nature had apparently had enough of us, and ecology has gone berserk!
As far as Willard 1971, Bruce Davidson’s Willard takes revenge by enlisting a few hundred rats and their sharp teeth to settle his workplace grievances with his abusive employer, Ernest Borgnine, after taking over his father’s business; Borgnine adds insult to injury by repeatedly mistreating Willard, then makes the fatal mistake of killing his beloved pet rat Socrates.
While Empire of the Ants 1977 finds Joan Collins showing property to buyers who really should have asked about the giant ant problem. Elsewhere, get ready for Sssssss 1973, where research assistant Dirk Benedict, working for Strother Martin as Dr. Carl Stoner, a deranged herpetologist, is discovering that “opportunity for growth” can mean shedding the old you and becoming a King Cobra. Over at the Crockett estate in Frogs 1972, Ray Milland’s wealthy, cantankerous patriarch has been poisoning the local wildlife and still expects an uninterrupted birthday party. The swamp has other plans. Alone in the dark, he gets a birthday chorus from a bulging-eyed crowd that’s done being background noise.
In The Bat People 1974… a doctor’s cave excursion is producing some unwelcome changes to his honeymoon plans: Stewart Moss is turning into a bat creature, leaving bride Marianne McAndrew to discover just how much ‘for better or worse’ left the worse suspiciously vague. Meanwhile, sheriff Michael Pataki takes an unwelcome interest in the newlyweds.
The worms in a small town in Georgia have had an electrical upgrade, courtesy of storm-damaged power lines, and are no longer content to let the locals do all the fishing. In Squirm 1976, the bait has developed a taste for local blood. … leaving Don Scardino and Patricia Pearcy alone to fend off a slimy little siege, as the cracks give way to writhing intruders and a rising shrill of tiny, savage screams.
In Bug 1975, an earthquake releases fire-starting cockroaches, and Bradford Dillman’s scientist Parmiter decides the situation calls for breeding a smarter, flying variety. Because the only thing worse than an arsonist is an arsonist with wings.
In The Food of the Gods 1976, Bert I. Gordon gives H. G. Wells a loose—and very large—adaptation: something bubbling out of the ground has turned feeding the chickens into a troubling new understanding of free-range. … while Ida Lupino’s rugged Mrs. Skinner takes the mysterious ooze as a gift from God, only to find her no-nonsense manner carries surprisingly little weight with rats bigger than a Volkswagen.
Meanwhile, in Kingdom of the Spiders 1977, the tarantulas would like to discuss what we’ve done to their food supply. Entomologist Diane Ashley theorizes that excessive use of pesticides has killed off the insects the tarantulas normally eat. They begin hunting together so they can overwhelm larger prey, first livestock and then humans. William Shatner finally meets something that can make a bigger scene than him. In Nightwing (1979), Nick Mancuso, Kathryn Harrold and bat specialist David Warner face a desert sky alive with leathery wings and hungry little faces, as plague-carrying vampire bats descend on a Native American reservation, giving the night air a bite that has nothing to do with the temperature.
Across these ten trailers, nature fights back, science oversteps, and humanity’s position at the top of the food chain comes up for reconsideration. The special effects may show their age, but there’s the creeping suspicion that we’re not quite in control has held up remarkably well.
WILLARD 1971
FROGS 1972
Sssssss 1973
THE BAT PEOPLE 1974
BUG 1975
SQUIRM 1976
THE FOOD OF THE GODS 1976
EMPIRE OF THE ANTS 1977
KINGDOM OF THE SPIDERS 1977
NIGHTWING 1979
Happy Halloween—enjoy the autumn air, the rustling leaves, and that brief, delicious interval before the rustling gets closer, larger, and more threatening!