La chose surgit des ténèbres

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.

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.

The Deadly Mantis was made towards the end of Universal's 1950's cycle of monster/sci-fi movies. This one is one of the best.

A giant prehistoric mantis is awoken from a long sleep by atomic bomb testing in the North Pole. After going on the rampage in the frozen wastes and killing several people in the process, it heads first for Washington and then New York, where it is eventually gassed in Manhattan Tunnel.

The giant mantis in this movie looks quite impressive despite the low budget. The movie's cast is led by William Hopper (20 Million Miles to Earth). He and the others play good parts.

I found this movie quite enjoyable and is worth watching if you get the chance.

Rating: 4 stars out of 5.

"The Giant Mantis" is the title and plot. There isn't much more to say. Acting is better than some of the other "giant something or other" films of the 1950s. The mantis is pretty movable-not some model that does nothing. The sequence at the very beginning is kinda cheesy but the footage and info about the DEW line and the whole radar net is pretty interesting. The character of Dr. Ned Jackson is fairly dull but Col. Parkman is OK. I get a kick out of the archive footage of the Eskimos in their kayaks. The effects are ordinary and the sets are the same as other sci-fi movies of the same period. This is a good flick to catch if you're in the mood for a giant bug movie.

I saw this on MST3K, and it's one of my great favourites. The endless map sequence at the beginning is quite hilarious, but my weakness for this movie stems from the fact that almost the first third of it takes place in Canada's arctic, and my dad actually worked on the DEW Line while I was a kid. The stock footage of the building of the radar lines up in the Arctic was fun (stirring music and all), but I think that someone connected with making the movie must have either been on the DEW Line, or knew someone who had. There were so many odd little details I've never seen in another movie, even though 'The Deadly Mantis' is not original in its use of the military to fight off a giant invader. The giant "Check Your Antifreeze" sign prominently displayed at headquarters was one - who would think of a detail like that, unless they'd actually seen it somewhere? And the most bizarre thing was the guys dancing together at the little party on the base; when you think about it, it makes sense - no women up there, so if you want to dance, you'd have to have men dancing together, but it's just not something a writer would just dream up while writing a movie. Alas, my dad died before I saw this movie, so I couldn't ask him how authentic it was in its portrayal of life on the DEW Line, but I think of him every time I watch it, and I'm sure he would have laughed uproariously.