La chose surgit des ténèbres

Well I can tell you this scared the bejeesus out of me when I was kid.

Watching it today, there are three things of note.

The first is the military footage. The virtual budget of this was millions of dollars because of the military supplied footage. It was defense policy to let the Soviets know of our massive three-tiered air defense and there was an office to so publicize. The idea was to convince the Russians that an attack couldn't possibly work, that the thing really existed. That's why the Pentagon subsidized these things. The scripts were therefore friendly to military success at the end, too.

A solid third of this is from the department of defense, no model planes here.

Perry Mason, the detecting lawyer was a literary phenomenon when this was made, the books about him being outsold only by the Bible. And there was a very popular TeeVee show based on him. Perry's own detective was a guy played by the detective here. And his sidekick is a Della Street (the third member of the gang) lookalike. It was like having Indiana Jones appear. The effect is lost today but was quite something in the day.

The third remarkable thing is what scares us. What we fear in our imagination is largely defined by movies. And what movies use to frighten us is tightly constrained by what they can show. In the fifties, that was often disappearing or morphing things, guys in rubber suits and small things made big by trick photography. "Them" was probably the first giant bug movie, but it used real bugs. This is already a second generation, using stop motion.

The footage of Aleutians — borrowed from an older film — is great, really great.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

When a military outpost and an airplane in Artic are destroyed, the investigation finds a mysterious object near the crashed airplane. The scientists advise that the famous paleontologist Dr. Nedrick Jackson (William Hopper) should give his opinion and he identifies as part of a spur of the leg of a giant insect. Soon Dr. Jackson and the military discover that a mantis is the responsible for the attacks and is heading to Washington.

"The Deadly Mantis" is an entertaining and funny movie released by Universal with a giant praying mantis that awakes with hunger and frightens the population. The special effects may be lame in 2018, but they were top-notch in 1957. The good guys are military, still a reflex of the WWII and the romantic conclusion was sort of standard in those years. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Fúria de uma Região Perdida" ("Rage of a Lost Region")

I'd gladly watch this one without the benefit of MST3K, as it wasn't half bad, considering the genre and era in which it was made. But then I'm a sucker for movies which open with giant maps, and story lines that offer military responses to life's problems.

To those of you who think this movie sucked, I suggest you view "Beginning of the End," another '50s era bug spectacular, this one featuring Peter Graves vs. a giant mutant grasshopper. I think after that you'd agree that the Mantis wasn't so bad.

One of the better giant monster on the loose films from Hollywood. This one has a giant praying mantis thaw out of a block of ice in Canada before heading south and warmer climes. To be certain the idea of a praying mantis hopping around in the snow is silly, but if you accept that-hell you're already accepting a giant insect- you'll have a pretty good time. Really watching it again for the first time years I was shocked at just how good the film is. To be certain its not really scary, but it does have a certain amount of tension, even when you know how and where its all going to end.

Definitely worth a look.

Although the intricacies of the plot are forever unbelievable, this film works very well both as a suspense film and also as a creditable "Giant Bug" film, so typical during the 50's Golden Age of Science Fiction. A giant Praying Mantis is preserved in the ice of the Artic Ocean, only to be dislodged by man's environmental meddling. The bug flies over various places in the Artic eating human beings as it makes its way toward the Equator. The task of destroying the giant insect befalls to three protagonists: Craig Stevens the military man(and romancer), William Hopper as the dedicated paleontologist, and Alix Talton as the hungry reporter/photographer/necessary female character so that main character can fall in love. The three manage to find the mantis and well....let's just say the poor creature didn't say his prayers TOO often. The film is tight, has lots of action, and is a great entertaining diversion.