Them!: Sandy Descher shows the face of terror.
Since outdoor activities seem to pose little threat, why not throw a picnic? I’ll bring the ants.
Them!
(1954)
The opening scene packs a horrifying wallop not generally associated with monster movies from the ‘50s. An aerial shot follows a pigtailed youngster (Sandy Descher), a doll with half its plastic skull ripped away clutched in her arm, as she drudges aimlessly across a huge expanse of desert. The jittery camera adds distress, not gimmickry, while her zombified gaze induces anything but audience sentiment. Hers is the face of terror, the look a child might have after witnessing her parents savagely done in by a colony of giant radioactive ants. Many movies feature a moment in which a character is called upon to speak the film’s title. This one’s a doozy. Descher, the spitting image of a young Natalie Wood, is being interrogated by the miraculous Edmund Gwynn, a myrmecologist who passes a beaker of formic acid the sam