Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #18 September 2015 | Page 50

technology and intelligence, he is still at the mercy of
natural, red in tooth and claw.
In Phase IV, the human race is confronted with an intelligence every bit as complex and capable as its own.
How this new form of intelligence arose isn’t clear.
There is some evidence that the ants have achieved a
hive mind due to an extraterrestrial intelligence coming to Earth. However, it is just as valid to interpret the
plot as charting the rise of an intelligence in response
to mankind’s treatment of the world. It is no accident
that the film is set in an abandoned housing development in the middle of the desert, an attempt to impose
one kind of ecosystem into an area unsuited for it.
“Human beings can exist in temperatures of 120 degrees or higher, but our computer shuts down at 90.”
- Ernest Hubbs
All of mankind’s technology is shown to be vulnerable
to the ant’s harnessing of more ‘natural’ forces. The
ants overcome the high-tech devices in the research
station by using their bodies to short out critical machinery and constructing reflective towers around the
lab, focusing the rays of the desert sun on the building. They become immune to the pesticides Hubbs
uses against them by changing their genetic structure.
Mankind’s reliance on complex and fragile technology
becomes a weakness the ants exploit.
What mankind’s technology does enable is for Lesko to learn the language of the ants and open up an
interspecies dialogue. This leads to the conclusion that
the ants have been observing and experimenting on
the scientists, just as the scientist have been observing
them. However, while Hubbs, representing a bruteforce materialistic view of the world, uses various
forms of coercion to try and teach the hive mind its
limitations, the ants have a larger goal in mind—the
merging of the two species. Kendra is eventually absorbed into the hive mind, becoming a human ‘queen’
and mating with Lesko. In a scene cut from the theatrical release, the film ends with a glimpse of the
future. There is a hybrid society, one of stark geometric structures, humans living in a fashion reminiscent
of how we’ve seen the intelligent ants living, using
unfathomable technology, perhaps to create an artifi-

cial version of the hive mind and, finally, images that
could be interpreted as showing a transcendent state
for mankind. This is Saul Bass’s preferred ending1; the
theatrical release ends with Kendra emerging from the
sand inside of a giant anthill and embracing Lesko,
some abstract imagery and Lesko saying, “We knew
then, we were being changed and made part of their
world. We didn’t know for what purpose, but we knew
we would be told.”
While it would be inaccurate to say the film is purely
an example of visual storytelling—important information is conveyed by the dialogue between Davenport
and Murphy—there are long sequences detailing the
actions of the ant society that are backed up only by
the discordant soundtrack. It is one of cinema’s most
ambitious attempts to build an alien culture based
solely on images and actions. Ken Middleham provided the spectacular insect photography2. The viewer is
given a sense of how the ant society works, how they
are organized, and even how they mourn their dead.
The work by Bass and Director of Photography Dick
Bush (Tommy, Crimes of Passion) is also noteworthy,
capturing the claustrophobic confines of the research
station and paralleling it with the tunnels and chambers of the ant colony.
The film benefits from the performances of Davenport
and Murphy. Davenport ably conveys the monomaniacal Hubbs as he slips from a rational concern over
what the growing ant intelligence represents to an
obsession with “teaching” them their limits and the
supremacy of the human intellect. Murphy is a nice
compliment to Davenport’s intense performance,
portraying Lesko as having a healthy balance between
curiosity over the ants and a concern for his safety,
as well as that of Kendra and Hubbs. He clearly sees
that confrontation won’t work; only by communicating with the ants can some kind of understanding be
reached.
“They’re not individuals, they’re individual cells, tiny
functioning parts of the whole. Think of the society…
with perfect harmony, perfect altruism and self-sacrifice.”
- Ernest Hubbs

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