Empire Of The Ants (1977)

A real estate developer (Joan Collins) takes a group of prospective buyers on a tour of an island where plots are being sold in anticipation of a beachfront community. Instead, they are welcomed by giant killer ants, the result of a toxic radiation spill. Very loosely based on the short story by H.G. Wells and directed by Bert I. Gordon. Incompetent about says it all but it's the kind of film that actually becomes grandly entertaining in its ineptitude. If you hadn't seen competent actors like Joan Collins, Robert Lansing or Albert Salmi in other things, you would assume they were the dregs of their profession based on their work here. But to be fair, the dialog is dreadful and there's probably nothing they could have done to make the screenplay other than what it is. It's the kind of dumb movie where the cast is surrounded by giant killer ants and one character says to another, "Have a piece of candy. It will make you feel better." Yeah, nothing like a piece of chocolate to make you forget you're about to be an ant's lunch. The special effects are shoddy. Obviously the actors had to pretend there were giant ants but in one attack scene John David Carson keeps swinging his oar into the empty air. Clearly, someone had forgot to put in a giant ant in front of him. With Jacqueline Scott, Robert Pine, Irene Tedrow, Pamela Susan Shoop and Edward Power.