King of the Ants

The plot: A double-crossed hit-man has to choose between redemption and vengeance, until the the choice is made for him.

Many of Stuart Gordon's movies have an amoral streak in them, but this is probably the most amoral movie that he's ever made. The lack of tension-relieving, wacky humor, like in most of his movies, highlights it and makes it even more disturbing. The gory violence just makes it even more disturbing, unlike the splatter comedies that he's commonly associated with (such as Re-Animator and From Beyond).

Long-time fans of Gordon have probably sat through many movies that were critically despised (perhaps none more so than Space Truckers, which attracts way too much hate, in my opinion). King of the Ants, however, is a real return to greatness. Yes, there are many disturbing, weird, and violent scenes, but underneath it all is a story that's actually quite intelligent and mature. Admittedly, this is a bit rare for Gordon, who tends to wallow in direct-to-video exploitation. I'm really glad that he chose to do something that he obviously believes in, because I've known for years that he could do a truly great film, if he just got the budget and proper inspiration. I might compare it to A History of Violence, an intriguing deconstruction of violent exploitation movies, made by a lauded director known primarily for his own exploitation movies. Unlike Cronenberg, however, I think Gordon shows no desire to break into the mainstream. His films remain too dark and disturbing.

If movies like King of the Ants and A History of Violence show us just one thing, it's that characters from these kinds of violent movies are incredibly disturbing when transposed into real world situations.

I couldn't avoid relating it to the most disturbing novel I've ever read: "Lord of the Flies" (William Golding, 1954) I won't go into details, but suffice to say that both this movie and the book deal with the dark side of human nature and both have perturbing effects on our minds and consciences. Those who are familiar with the book will know what I mean.

The characters in both the movie and the book live detached from society, their rules and morals: In 'Lord of the Flies' British kids, educated in a private school, are castaways stranded in a wild island. Eventually their civilized coat wears off and their inner savagery shows (safe a few characters who remain civilized). Sean Crawly (Chris McKenna) is a current boy, but he is also a dormant killer. Favourable circumstances(money and impunity) will trigger his wicked self.

I've read fuming comments here in the style of "how on earth such normal boy is able to become a killer? This movie is bad!" What turns our stomachs is that his victim is innocent. The scene of the killing is horrifying but what makes it unbearable is that we know that Crawly knows he is killing an honest man. We don't feel so uncomfortable anymore when Crawly takes his revenge.

The scene with Sean Crawly and Duke (George Wendt) at the zoo is also significant. Duke explains how humans can be compared with animals. Notice the pun in Sean's surname (Crawly) and how he is compared with a reptile and also with an ant.

I find that the title of the movie and Duke's cut-of head may be a conspiratorial wink to 'Lord of the Flies'. Maybe it's a coincidence, but the similarities are too obvious to be ignored.

This is a horror film. We may like the plot or not, agree with its development and ending or not, but.. kudos for all the actors and their director. In my opinion their performances are convincing and irreproachable.

A young drifter discovers his true calling when he's hired by a mobster to stalk and kill a prominent accountant, and then decides to seek revenge when the stingy thugs try to kill him rather than pay him. For me it was kind of hard to get a grip from the beginning because there was nothing that would have explained who the main characters were and what was their goal and so on. This left the characters really shallow and the dialogue between them was something out of a bum disco. While there is some strong personality being displayed, it is done in a way that is truthful to human nature. I think it could use some editing to speed the pace a bit. The film is hard to watch at times and difficult to call enjoyable. 7/10.

The last good film Stuart Gordon made was 1985's "Re- Animator," which I also give a 7 of 10.

I mention the former mainly because this film is just as gripping and disturbing. This is not a horror-movie like the former, but it is "horrific" with its peculiar violent realism.

Not much by way of character-development for the protagonist, but in this case, the less said about him the better, or we may not come around to be sympathetic with him when it counts. What we do know of the character Sean Crawley is pretty damn ugly, but unknown actor Chris McKenna has a screen presence that makes him somewhat likable, or at least puts us in his corner in the end.

This film is not a good choice for mixed company, much less a date, but worth watching when home alone and prepared to be wonderfully disturbed.

From some of the recent reviews of this film, I expected gore like none I'd ever seen before. Frankly, I thought they were a little off base. The "torture" consists of the same act each day, and while it isn't something I'd particularly like to experience myself, it could have been much worse. I found the torture scenes in "Marathon Man" and "Braveheart," to name just two, to be much more disturbing.

One thing I really didn't like about this movie was that none of the major characters is particularly likable. The tortured fella probably deserves what he gets, and the revenge he exacts isn't particularly just considering one of his victims treated him rather well when he was a captive.

All in all, I wasn't bored watching this movie, but I wouldn't recommend it. The story isn't particularly compelling, the romance isn't believable, and the gore factor isn't even that high.