And thats it! Those are the eight Big Bug movies that started it all.
Then Ill list all the Big Bug classics in chronological order.
This one from FEARnet is a decent Top 5. It includes
This one from B-Monster is about anything giant thats not a dinosaur, and it lists several insect movies as favorites.
This Black Friday I will be bed…farting off several pounds of consumed turkey parts.
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But maybe we should expect no less when Willis OBrien (King Kong) did the stop-motion effects. Mexico (not the US) gets attacked by many giant scorpions (not just one as in the title). For added fun, our hero never buttons his shirt and our wears a tight jumpsuit.
As with giant monster movies, radiation or chemicals are most often blamed for creating the creatures; in other words, we did it to ourselves. But natural disasters may also be responsible, as inThe Black Scorpion. Either way, there is a sense of pessimism.
Especially loved watching the Army men futility shooting .30 cal small arms at a 50 tall armored bug, knowing they were gonna die (bravely, but still dead).
Especially dug the womens hairstyles.
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These are often the creatures first victims. Cows seem especially unlucky.
Youd never think that some guy named Edward Ludwig who directed silent shorts in the 1920s would give us the most action-packed of all Big Bug movies in the 1950s.
One of the most enjoyable subgenres of 1950s sci-fi film is the Big Bug subgenre, also known as the Insect Fear or Giant Insect subgenre.
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Some viewers countTHE BLOB(1958)as a bug movie, but I say its a monster movie, especially since the blob comes from outer space. Big Bugs might get created by cosmic rays, but the bugs themselves always have earthly origins.
The movie is aimed specifically at teenagers, one of the first movies to do so since teens as a target audience were first recognized a year earlier withI Was a Teenage Werewolf. Director Bert I. Gordon (yes, him again) didnt notice, or didnt care, that the giant spider changes size about five times during the movie. This just makes it even more fun.
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In the 70s, Big Bug movies merged with Eco Terror to inspireFood of the Gods, Kingdom of the Spiders, andBug. In the 80s and 90s, Big Bug movies helped inspireSkeeter, Creepshow, andMimic.Im sure you can add to this list.
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(1957) which features giant snails.
If youd like further reading, youll find that most articles focus on newer films, namingStarship Troopers, Arachnophobia, or CronenbergsThe Flyamong the leaders.
AfterCreature from the Black Lagoonbut beforeIncredible Shrinking Man, director Jack Arnold madeTarantula, which probably has the best special effects of all Big Bug movies. The tarantula is real, superimposed to look 100-feet tall as it creeps across the Arizona desert.
But here are two articles that list at least a few 50s classics:
When I was a youngster I saw a movie on television and even had some toys from it. But I have been searching for it but have had no luck even finding a mention of it any place. I believe it was called Attack of The giant Beetles where normal beetles were transformed by getting into a scientists green house where he was trying to grow plants to enormous size to feed the world. but the ending of this lost movie ruined it where they blew up a factory on a hill above the town
Bonus: Clint Eastwood plays the fighter pilot who attacks the creature with napalm at the conclusion; youll scarcely see his face but youll recognize that voice.
Say what you want, but they spent a great deal of time & effort to get that beehive or helmet-hair look.
I want to share a secret with you, I sort of love movie dance numbers….god,
Perhaps an entomologist, but more likely a geologist or other kind of scientist will be our hero. They tend to be thinkers and planners. This differentiates them from the more creative reporters or the more strapping explorers who might be the heroes of giant monster movies. Sometimes the scientists clash with military men, as in several space-oriented sci-fi pictures of the era. But more often theyll work with the military side by side.
From otherwise undistinguished director Gordon Douglas comes this first, and possibly best, of all Big Bug movies. Its sad and serious at the opening, and its light on action compared with its imitators, but its got an eerie entrancing mood that lends it a touch of class. The giant ant puppets look realistic, though theyre always partly shrouded by fog or darkness.
From Bert I. Gordon (Mr. BIG) comes a surprisingly exciting story about giant grasshoppers attacking Chicago. Live grasshoppers are used, shot to look huge. In several shots, you can tell that its just life-sized grasshoppers crawling over some photographs. But the acting is strong (Peter Graves!) and, heck, the whole thing is only 75 minutes anyway.
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When the tanks rolled-up but were also ineffective, thats when $hit got REAL!
Now here are all eight Big Bug classics. Ive written more extensively on each of these in myClaws & Saucersfilm guidebook, but I hope youll enjoy my brief descriptions and comments below.
Something also common in regular giant monster movies: a big map on a wall to help us follow the creatures path through the countryside. Often, the path leads straight toward a big city, and our heroes must stop the creature before it arrives.
Filed Under:GeneralTagged:50sCult/ExploitationGiant Animals/MonstersHorrorMovies/DVDTop ListWritten by David E. Goldweber
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Heres the lone British entry into the subgenre. Its also the least famous entry in the subgenre, and probably the worst. Planet X refers to Earth. In the movie, a visiting alien tries to help Earth fend off some mutated grasshoppers, roaches, beetles, and spiders. The special effects are awful and the pacing is glacial, but the final battle with the insects isnt bad. The only good effect is a corpses face getting eaten off!
Even when their heyday had passed, Big Bug movies lingered on in American pop culture. In the 1962Mars Attackstrading cards, giant insects figured into no less than a dozen cards, as the Martians use super-science to enlarge Earths insects and send them on murderous rampages.
Heres another bad one, even worse thanThe Deadly Mantis, about giant wasp-beetles in Africa. (Were told that the creatures are wasps even though they are clearly beetles.) Actually the beetles themselves are decently animated with stop-motion, and they make a scary buzzing sound. But they get very little screen time, and they pose no threat to anyone until the way end. Director Kenneth Crane also made the incredibly bizarreManster(1959).
Compared with giant monster movies Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Godzilla, It Came from Beneath the Sea, etc. Big Bug movies offered less outright death and destruction.
But they were weirder and more offbeat than typical giant monster movies.
Usually, incredulous police or townsfolk discover signs of the giant insects weird tracks, strange sounds, or sticky residue before the actual creatures appear on screen. This makes for a step-by-step narrative.
They were also more realistic, and therefore more scary.
Here youll get a relaxing five minutes of footage from a science documentary, the kind of thing youd see in a high school biology class. It will happen when our hero needs to educate the town authorities. Youll get real footage of the actual-sized insects of the giant creatures type. Like the town authorities, the audience gets enlightened by the film-within-a-film. This helps us fully appreciate the Big Bugs menace.
that made molasses and trapped the giant insects or drowned them. Have you ever heard of this movie? Or run across any of the toys promoting it? contact me at[emailprotected] my name is Robert
Substandard in all respects, this one is still interesting for the Cold War military stock footage. The mantis itself is a decent puppet, but the movie is uninspired. The ending recallsThem!Director Nathan Juran madeAttack of the 50 Foot Womana year later.
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8.THE STRANGE WORLD OF PLANET X(1958)
This is the only Big Bug movie that offers no explanation for the creatures origin. The spider just emerges from a cave one day and attacks a small town, even crashing a high school dance!
