Filmed on location at various spots in Florida, including Belle Glade, Jensen Beach, and Fort Pierce, the film was produced by the legendary Samuel Z. Arkoff (a former lawyer-turned-producer who had made a career out of exploitative monster and teen films beginning in the 1950s) and Bert I. Gordon, who was known for his "nature vs. man" films like The Food of the Gods (1976). Gordon directed Empire of the Ants and wrote the screenplay with Jack Turley, which was very loosely based on a 1905 short story by H.G. Wells. The cast was headed by a pre-Dynasty Joan Collins, Robert Lansing, Robert Pine, Albert Salmi, Jacqueline Scott, and veteran character actress Irene Tedrow.
Collins plays Marilyn, a shady real estate agent who brings a group of potential investors to tour a dubious island property called Dreamland Shores. Unbeknownst to all, barrels of atomic waste have washed up on the shore and been eaten by ants. As in any good 50s sci-fi film, the radioactive waste causes the ants to grow to gargantuan proportions and the humans find themselves in danger. Not only can the ants eat them, they now have the power to brainwash people and enslave them through pheromones expelled by the queen ant that rules the colony. With a town full of humans under the queen's spell, and the constant threat of death-by-ant, Marilyn and her party must find a way to destroy the ants and save humanity.
When actor Robert Pine's agent pitched Empire of the Ants to him, he refused because he was afraid it would hurt his career. The agent countered that no one would see the film and he should do it for the money. The shooting schedule was set for eleven weeks, with six weeks devoted to filming and creating special effects for the ants and only five weeks carved out to shoot the actors. According to Pine, the producers went to South America and filmed poisonous ants, but the final results left Pine wondering why they didn't go to his backyard and film his ants, since they were so similar, no one could tell the difference.
The cheesiness of the special effects did not escape notice. The New York Times critic A. H. Weiler found the film to be "dull," writing that "the human's fright is seen as play acting, and the account of their progress over a gory trail is slow and repetitive. And, aside from some multifaceted ant's-eye views of humans, the special effects are artificial and unexciting. This Empire of the Ants, as Albert Salmi, in the small role of the village sheriff, puts it, is "hard to believe."
SOURCES:
The Internet Movie Database
Schoell, William Creature Features: Nature Turned Nasty in the Movies
Weaver, Tom A Sci-Fi Swarm and Horror Horde: Interviews with 62 Filmmakers
Weiler, A.H. "'Empire of the Ants' A Snail's-Pace Film" The New York Times 30 Jun 77
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDK3IT29uoQ
By Lorraine LoBianco
