Them! (1954)

clearly one the best sci" fi" of the nineteen fiftys, it stands the test of time with truth , justice, and the american way. and best of all the guy gets the girl at the end.the ploit is straight forward , and with acting that is of high quality for a sci" fi" film . hollywood should make " them " like this once again.

Fmovies: I'm glad to read so many intelligent, positive reviews of a 1950s sci-fi giant monster-type flick, most of which are so bad they are laughable. Not this one: this one earns all the praise.

Why does this film in the midst of so many bad efforts of the genre and time period get rated so highly?

1 - A good cast: James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn and James Arness are all pretty famous actors who do a fine job here,; 2 - Good special effects, meaning they still look pretty real over 50 years later; 3 - A pretty intelligent script, certainly far better than its competitors; 4 - None of the standard stupid love interest to take away from the storyline; 5 - Just the right amount of action, and finally, 6 - It keeps your interest all the way through. No lulls and genuinely suspenseful.

"Them" is simply one of the most influential films of all time. This was the first film to deal with our fears of the atomic age and the what if scenario of what our continued testing and use of nuclear arms and how they would affect mother nature. Within the next few years we were bombarded with giant locusts, lizards and mutated humans of all sorts. In fact, this film was the inspiration for "Godzlla" (or "Gojira" as he is known in Japan). In fact, the giant insects in "Rodan" were a directly inspired by "Them". This film also works as a murder mystery as well. In the first half hour, the viewer thinks that he is looking at a whodunnit until the appearance of the giant ants. This film works on so many different levels that it still holds up well nearly fifty years after it was first released.

Them! fmovies. As has been my habit of late, I'm catching-up on old movies I remember from my youth seen on the screen at the time of release or remembered from '60s-'80s replays on late-night television. Watching them on a widescreen TV in DVD format with surround sound and, of course, with the benefit of hindsight, it becomes a whole new experience.

THEM! is a wonderful Cold-War era movie which manages, without trying, to prove that modern SF blockbusters owe much to their (especially) '50s progenitors. Given the limited budget of B-Grade movies they manage to thrill across the generations - even while remakes and plagiaristic sequences abound and dazzle contemporary audiences.

The 'storm-drain' sequence in T2 is a prime example, as is the 'egg burning' scenario in ALIEN, complete with flamethrowers. You saw them first in THEM!, folks. The 'isolated and mysteriously-wrecked gas station/general store' is another stolen moment from THEM! and has appeared in many movies - even the X-FILES. Wearing the flame-retardant suits and the breathing-apparatuses to attack 'the nest' pops up in EVOLUTION. And so it goes.

There are some excellent actors in this film - most of whom are B-Grade stalwarts (James Whitmore and James Arness for example) - and they play it straight. No 'camping-it-up' for these heroes! I even spotted a young Leonard Nimoy as an Airforce sergeant. Fess Parker as the confused witness of the 'ant-shaped UFOs' offers both light-hearted humour and the prototype for the innocent caught in a cover-up: he's left in the mental hospital as a deranged psychotic as per the suggestion put to his doctor. How many times have we seen this since? Even the little girl, a traumatised survivor of the attack on her parents' trailer-home, has resonances in the character of a similar survivor in ALIENS.

OK, the irradiated monsters/ants are pretty hokey, but see my remark re small budgets. CGI didn't exist then.

I'd place this production alongside such classics as INVADERS FROM MARS and the British QUATERMASS (trilogy?) which also terrorised my generation. We were children in a time when the world seemed doomed to nuclear destruction and our homes ripe for invasion by THEM!, regardless of who (yes, I know, the Communists) or what (monsters created by our cavalier use of technology) would be invading. And, strangely, nothing has changed, except that postmodern children seem to have lost their innocence in a demonstrably violent and insane milieu. As I stated before, these movies, in hindsight have lost none of their power. The themes remain the same.

If I were to write a review something along the lines of: "Them! is awesome because it depicts giant irradiated ants, and giant irradiated ants are cool", I'd probably be shot. Either way, 'Them!' is a great movie.

'Them!, to my knowledge, would be one of the earliest sci-fi movies to look at the consequences of nuclear technology. 'The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms' was released a year earlier in 1953, and 'Gojira' was released months after 'Them!', and arguably became the most successful of the three, but don't discount the impact 'Them!' had.

The film opens in New Mexico. Several people seem to bitten the desert dust when some police officers find the prototype for Newt from 'Aliens'. After an investigation, a nest of giant ants is discovered. The ants were mutated by atomic testing, and are responsible for the local deaths.

Like the 'Beast From 20,000 Fathoms' and 'Gojira', 'Them!' played on Cold War fears of the consequences of using nuclear weapons. The story may not be as relevant today as it was during the 50s, but as a student of history I find it rather interesting. And as a fan of action and sci-fi, 'Them!' has obviously had influences on 'Aliens', 'Starship Troopers', 'Terminator 2', and other movies.

'Them!' is a great sci-fi movie. It is a shame that many people my age would avoid it due to its age, it being in black and white, and not having special-effects on the level of the 'Matrix' - 9/10

I was about 6 years old when i first saw this movie in 1962 or 63. My neighbor, Bill, and my brother watched it with me. I lived in Montrose MI at the time and when it was over my mother told us to go out and play. We resisted her and almost got in trouble for arguing but hey, how can you send three young boys out to face the world after they just watched how giant ants almost took it over? We were scared to death, and hid behind the trees and bushes just watching for them.

Where have I lived for most part since 1984? Good old Alamogordo NM, home of the giant ants! How destiny does intrude on life. I love the desert and mountains out here (retired from USAF in 1999) and I am very happy to say that there have been no reports of giant ants since I have been here. People always call this the home of Atomic bomb (though they are off by some distance)and I always look them straight in the face and say "What? You mean you never heard of our giant ant problem?"