{"id":28491,"date":"2022-07-09T21:36:37","date_gmt":"2022-07-10T04:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/?p=28491"},"modified":"2022-07-09T21:36:37","modified_gmt":"2022-07-10T04:36:37","slug":"review-ants-bd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/2022\/07\/review-ants-bd\/","title":{"rendered":"Ants! Blu-ray Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Ants<\/em><\/strong> is another eco-horror thriller TV movie from the late 1970s and is pretty much on par with the likes of Tarantulas<\/em> and Terror Out of the Sky<\/em>, meaning passably entertaining but not much more than that.<\/p>\n

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Ants!<\/span>
\n(1977)
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Genre(s): <\/strong>Horror, Thriller<\/span>
\nKino Lorber| NR \u2013 95 min. \u2013 $24.95 | July 5, 2022<\/span><\/p>\n

Date Published:<\/strong> 07\/09\/2022 | Author:<\/strong> The Movieman<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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MOVIE INFO:
\n<\/u><\/strong>Director: <\/strong>Robert Scheerer
\nWriter(s): <\/strong>Guerdon Trueblood (written by)
\nCast: <\/strong>Robert Foxworth, Lynda Day George, Gerald Gordon, Bernie Casey, Barry Van Dyke, Karen Lamm, Myrna Loy, Anita Gullette, Steve Franken, Brian Dennehy, Suzanne Somers<\/p>\n
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DISC INFO:
\n<\/u><\/strong>Features: <\/strong>Audio Commentary, Audio Interviews
\nSlip Cover: <\/strong>Yes
\nDigital Copy: <\/strong>No
\nFormats Included: <\/strong>Blu-ray
\nNumber of Discs: <\/strong>1<\/span><\/p>\n
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Audio: <\/strong>English (DTS-HD MA 2.0)
\nVideo: <\/strong>1080p\/Widescreen 1.85 and Full Frame 1.33
\nSubtitles: <\/strong>English SDH
\nDisc Size: <\/strong>40.74 GB
\nTotal Bitrate: <\/strong>21.05 Mbps
\nCodecs: <\/strong>MPEG-4 AVC
\nRegion(s): <\/strong>A<\/span><\/p>\n
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Kino Lorber provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Blog Post.
\nThe opinions I share are my own.<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

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THE MOVIE \u2014 2\u00be\/5<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
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Plot Synopsis: <\/strong>A mountain resort is ravaged by a deadly force in this terrifying tale of Mother Nature\u2019s revenge. Expecting a weekend of luxurious self-indulgence, visitors at the ritzy Lakewood Manor soon discover they\u2019re the entr\u00e9e of the day for an army of malevolent ants with an appetite for human flesh. When these killer creepy-crawlies eat toxic insecticides, they don\u2019t die\u2014they just get meaner.<\/p>\n

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Quick Hit Review: Ants<\/em><\/strong> is thankfully the third and last of these creature-attack horror-thrillers I\u2019ve watch in the past few days (the others were Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo<\/em> and Terror Out of the Sky<\/em>) and this one is pretty much in-line with those where you get an ensemble cast, this one especially felt close to a 1970s disaster film as well, who battle some invasion and they must figure out a way from the insects from spreading.<\/p>\n

This is another made-for-television movie that aired back in 1977 on ABC and while not great, did have a few suspense-filled moments and fun to see the likes of Brian Dennehy fairly early in his career (and looking on IMDb, one of a dozen movies and shows he appeared in \u201977). That said, I can\u2019t say it\u2019s anything special and killer ants don\u2019t really frighten me.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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SPECIAL FEATURES \u2013 3\u00bd\/5<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
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This release comes with a matted slip cover<\/strong> and the interior cover is reversible.<\/p>\n

Features include an Audio Commentary<\/u><\/strong> by Author\/Film Historian Lee Gambin; Audio Interviews<\/strong> with Actors Barbara Brownell (38:50)<\/u><\/strong>, Barry Van Dyke (40:09)<\/u><\/strong>, Anita Gillette (32:19)<\/u><\/strong>, Moosie Drier (33:14)<\/u><\/strong>, and Production Assistant and Daughter of Producer Alan Landsberg, Valerie Landsberg (45:22)<\/u><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

All told, the interviews totaled over 3 hours and each one covers their respective careers and their memories working on Ants<\/em><\/strong>. Really for a TV movie from 45 years ago, they did a good job getting as many interviewees as possible.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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VIDEO \u2013 4\/5<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
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Ants<\/em><\/strong> crawls onto Blu-ray through Kino Lorber where it\u2019s presented both in 1.85 widescreen and 1.33 full frame aspect ratios and 1080p high-def transfers (taken from a new 2K master). It\u2019s basically up to personal preferences as the widescreen option does cut off the top and bottom but the sides are expanded versus the full frame which is open framed but sides not showing as much of the frame. I decided to watch with the widescreen version which looked rather good; detail was decent enough while colors weren\u2019t especially vibrant. There were a couple very minor specs here and there but for the most part this was a clean transfer.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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AUDIO \u2013 3\u00be\/5<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
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The disc comes with a standard DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 track which, and I\u2019m going out on a limb here, probably sounded far better than the stereo (or mono) sound from televisions back in the 70s. Dialogue comes across with nice clarity and even the sounds of the thousands of ants scrambling around offer some minor depth.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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OVERALL \u2013 3\/5<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
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Overall, Ants<\/em><\/strong> is another eco-horror thriller TV movie from the late 1970s and is pretty much on par with the likes of Tarantulas<\/em> and Terror Out of the Sky<\/em>, meaning passably entertaining but not much more than that.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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Check out some more 1080p screen caps by going to page 2. Please note, these do contain spoilers<\/strong>.
\nThese are only here to give an idea of the movie\u2019s video quality and may not be truly representative of it.<\/p>\n

\"ants00.png\"<\/a>\"ants01.png\"<\/a>\"ants02.png\"<\/a>\"ants03.png\"<\/a>\"ants04.png\"<\/a>\"ants05.png\"<\/a>\"ants06.png\"<\/a>\"ants07.png\"<\/a>\"ants08.png\"<\/a>\"ants09.png\"<\/a>\"ants10.png\"<\/a>\"ants11.png\"<\/a>\"ants12.png\"<\/a>\"ants13.png\"<\/a>\"ants14.png\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ants is another eco-horror thriller TV movie from the late 1970s and is pretty much on par with the likes of Tarantulas and Terror Out of the Sky, meaning passably entertaining but not much more than that.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,970],"tags":[7076,1255,3852,7075,6867,7074,7077],"class_list":["post-28491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blurayreviews","category-quick-hit-reviews","tag-barry-van-dyke","tag-brian-dennehy","tag-kino-lorber","tag-lynda-day-george","tag-myrna-loy","tag-robert-foxworth","tag-suzanne-somers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28491"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28491\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28492,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28491\/revisions\/28492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}