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.

From that great series of classic prehistoric beasts of the Fifties, The Deadly Mantis is a prehistoric insect the size of about three tractor trailers who gets thawed out of the Arctic ice and begins moving south for warmer climate and food. The Air Force spends a lot of time trying to kill this tough old bug, throwing everything they can at it, save atomic weapons. Given the speeds that this mantis is going which rival and in some cases excel what our latest jet fighters are doing, that would have been impractical.

The film focuses on the efforts of three people to bring the mantis down, fighter pilot Craig Stevens, paleontologist William Hopper, and photojournalist Alix Talton. Of course a little romance gets going between Stevens and Talton while Hopper is strictly business.

You have to wonder though what ancient prehistoric earth might have been life if indeed insects got that big and were flying around at supersonic speeds. Maybe they're what killed the dinosaur.

Other than the special effects to create The Deadly Mantis that were done at a major studio being Universal, the film itself is a no frills affair even with a small romantic interlude. The Deadly Mantis is in keeping with a great tradition of Universal horror classics.

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")

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.

A volcanic explosion on the island of Dot upends an iceberg on the other side of the world. Embedded within the ice is The Deadly Mantis, a gigantic flesh eating insect which has been in a cryogenic sleep since the Jurassic period or so. The ice melts, the Mantis awakens and embarks on a deadly reign of terror around the North Pole. It munches on some Air Force personnel who have set up radar stations in the remote wasteland, and then eats a couple of Inuits before anyone catches on. Dr. Ned Jackson, a renowned expert in the field of entomology, arrives on the scene with his friend and photographer Marge to confirm what Ned has already guessed: that a giant Praying Mantis is on the loose. Marge and Col. Joe Parkman fall instantly in love and the Mantis decides to head for a warmer climate, namely Washington DC!!!

This really isn't as bad as it sounds. True, "Tarantula" and "Them!" were much better, but at least this isn't as excruciating as "The Beginning of the End." As far as films about giant insects go, this one is pretty good, and it's interesting to note that the mantis did not become a huge monster due to radioactive mutation: it's just a dinosaur! And Ned is right there with an ant trapped in a globe of amber to explain it all, some 40+ years before Richard Attenborough spared no expense on Jurassic Park.

Decent fun.