Red Ants Gone MAD

"Them!" isn't bad for a heavy-handed diatribe that nominally questions American militarism in the Atomic Age of Cold War politics but ultimately valorizes that very thing. One reporter in the film asks if the Cold War is heating up, and, indeed, that's exactly what happens as the Americans take flame throwers to the ant hills of communism. I wouldn't think a scare lecture on the MADness (mutual assured destruction, that is) of the red menace infesting the American West would necessarily be a profitable appeal to the teenage drive-in audience of the 1950s, but when it works it works. The giant radioactive ants do look pretty good, after all, and it's an appreciably cheesy kaiju--one released, by the way, not long before the first "Gojira" (1954), with its also-nuclear monster.

Largely, though, and as especially illustrated by further comparison to the prior and, again, also-nuclear monster, "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" (1953), I think "Them!" works because its characters and narrative are better constructed. It follows the basic complex discovery plot of horror films, as articulated by film theorist Noël Carroll, and is better paced. Note how there's the promise of a romance here, too, between either one of the male investigators (the policeman or the G-man) and the daughter-scientist, but it never develops, because that sort of thing is incredibly boring and distracting. Additionally, the scientists aren't entirely incompetent. I also appreciate the apocalyptic stakes raised here--back in the days when numerous alien-invasion, natural disaster, superhero and kaiju blockbusters weren't released every year threatening world annihilation. Reflexively, TV, radio and newspaper men are all eventually employed, and we also receive a film-within-film lecture on the aggressive behavior of the Soviets--I mean, ants.