Empire of the Ants is a very bad film from veteran bad film maker Bert I Gordon. Bert I relied on his usual formula of combining size change with an H.G. Wells story to make a quick buck. I'm sure that at one time these special effects were considered state of the art, but for God's sake he's been using the same damn techniques since 1956. I'm no expert in the world of trick photography, but still there has to have been some advances between "Attack of the Puppet People" and "Empire of the Ants." To boot, all of Bert I's special effects involve making things larger or smaller. What the hell Bert? Didn't you learn how to do anything else in film school? You can only remake the same damn movie so many times.

Here's the plot, or lack there of. Joan Collins leads a group of prospective buyers on a cruise to a piece of swamp land that is going to be developed into condos. The group has the typical monster movie stereotypes; the salty sea captain, the unfaithful husband, the old folks who were just along for the ride, etc. They find a group of giant ants who proceed to devour some of the passengers. The survivors find a town where the inhabitants are brainwashed by ant pheromones and feed refined sugar to the ants. Pretty simple huh.

The acting was OK, but besides that the movie just kind of sucked. Bert I, I'm glad that you've stopped making films.