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Get Out the Raid: It’s Our Top 5 Giant Bug Movies

by Cynthia on April 7th, 2008

I’m a chicken when it comes to bugs, especially spiders! (It was the size of a Buick and it had a gun.)  Maybe that’s why I enjoy seeing a tarantula the size of a semi get its comeuppance in the form of a bomb.

So here is my list of my Top 5 Favorite Giant Bug Movies. 

5.  Earth Vs. The Spider (1958)

Bert l. Gordon made a name for himself making movies about nature gone wild.  He was actually dubbed “Mr. Big” for both his initials and his penchant for giant creature movies.  This time out, it’s all about a giant spider, teenager behavior and rock ‘n roll.  (Three can’t miss subjects for any movie in the 50’s.)  The giant spider is discovered in a cave when a girl and her boyfriend go looking for the girl’s missing father. The spider is “killed” with a boat load of bug spray and then (here’s brilliance in action), the creature is brought back to town and put on display in the high school gym. Hint.  The bug ain’t dead, it’s merely stunned and all it takes is a rock band rehearsal to wake it up.  Panic ensues and it rampages through town.  How will they kill it?  I’ll never tell.

4. Tarantula (1955)

You’ll recognize the stars of this flick as the B-Movie staples of the day, John Agar, Mara Corday, Nestor Paiva along with Leo G. Carroll (The Man From U.N.C.L.E.).  Another giant spider movie, this one has a bit more story on the front end.  Carroll is another scientist trying to use radioactive materials to solve the world’s hunger problem.  But instead of growing giant tomatoes, he grows giant rats, guinea pigs and spiders.  (Huh?  Chickens and pigs, I could understand but. . . )  Oddly, his assistants inject themselves with the nutrient (stupid) and they become mutants!  The mutants attack!  The lab is destroyed, giant spider escapes and continues to grow!  And its at that point that Tarantula becomes your typical giant bug movie.  It chases, it chomps, it goes after the love interest and in the end it must be destroyed.  Watch for an uncredited Clint Eastwood in this one as they prepare to bomb the heck out of this baby.

3. Deadly Mantis (1957)

Craig Stevens and William Hopper (yes, really) head up this cast of popular character actors from the era in this film directed by Irwin Allen fan-favorite Nathan Juran.  This time it’s global warming that’s to blame for the giant bug attack and not radioactivity.  The creature is a throwback from the prehistoric era that’s been in suspended animation inside an iceberg.  Global shift, iceberg melts and on the loose and itching for some Eskimo Pies!  Stevens and Hopper track the giant mantis all over the US finally trapping it in the Holland Tunnel.  Love the shots of the Mantis hanging off the Washington Monument and the Holland Tunnel sequences are great.

2. Beginning of the End (1957)

Terrible title but a neat little movie about giant grasshoppers invading Chicago.  It’s another Mr. Big (Bert I. Gordon) production but this one is written by popular TV scribe Fred Freiberger (Space 1999, Starsky & Hutch, Dukes of Hazzard).  Reporter Audrey Aimes stumbles on a story about a Department of Agriculture experiment gone wrong.  The hope was to end world hunger with super-sized vegetables but three guesses what they’re using to stimulate growth?  Yep, radioactivity.  A bunch of grasshoppers got into a silo full of glowing wheat and wham, you’re going to need the world’s largest bug zapper to knock these babies out of the sky.  Peter Graves stars as the doctor who teams up with Aimes to stop the plague of locusts and the solution they come up with is quite clever.

1.  Them! (1954)

Once again it’s nuclear residue, thanks to the atomic bomb testing at Alamagordo, that creates. . . well. . THEM!  Giant ants, to be more specific and if you think ants aren’t scary, think again.  Made in 1954, this scifi gem has a stellar cast including James Whitmore, James Arness, Edmund Gwenn (Santa Claus) and Fess Parker. Watch closely and you’ll even spot a very young Leonard Nimoy as an uncredited Air Force Sergeant. Gwenn plays an ant expert, who, along with his daughter, joins a cop (Whitmore) and an FBI agent (Arness) to hunt down and destroy the nests of the creatures.  The film is full of wonderful ‘out of the frying pan and into the fire’ moments as the queen ants escape and finally nest in the drainage tunnels of Los Angeles.  Considering the era when it was made, Them contains a number of death scenes and the catatonic little girl is downright creepy.  Don’t let the poster art fool you, Them isn’t your average B-movie.

So there you have it!  My favorite Giant Bug Movies!  The poster art is courtesy of Movie Goods where you can buy originals and reproductions of 1,000 of wonderful movie posters from then and now.

Did I miss one of your favorites?  Tell me about it in the comments below.

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