This is Doctor Nils Hellstrom and he has a message for us. He believes that for mankind, the apocalypse is right around the corner, and the cause of that is on the ground beneath our feet and in the air around us: the humble insect. But how humble is it? Hellstrom has jeopardised his career to inform the world that we are under threat, and now he has a platform to express his concerns, so he's not going to go easy on the details as through the use of extensive closeup footage of the creatures he expounds on his theories that they are ready to rise up and inherit the earth...
Of course, there was no such person as Dr Nils Hellstrom, the man you see was prolific character actor Lawrence Pressman, and the whole insect armageddon notion was one dreamt up by the filmmakers to sell their work to a sensation-hungry audience. It certainly proved successful, as it won the Best Documentary Oscar shortly after its release, something that a few quibbled with as while the microscopic camerwork fitted that category, the whole tone and indeed many of the inserts with Pressman talking directly to the audience were pure science fiction, or even horror. Look at Hellstrom's name: an anagram of Hell Storm!
So once you were aware that you were watching what was effectively an exploitation flick with insects, a creepy-crawly mondo movie if you like, its frequently over the top pronouncements did hold some entertainment value. The director of this was Walon Green, who specialised in oddball documentaries in the seventies before he found screenwriting and producing more lucrative, but what pointed to his love of insects was the fact that it was his face which had that millipede thing crawling over it during the nightmare tunnel sequence of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. On that evidence this film was what he was born to make.
It's appropriate that the script should use the language of horror, not only because writer David Seltzer was the man who brought us The Omen a few years later, but that the original audiences would have been reminded of those sci-fi shockers where insects were increased to gigantic size thanks to seeing this on a large screen. Yet in spite of all its fictional trappings, this was a foray into the wild world of nature red in tooth and claw at heart, and much of the terrific footage of the subjects was pioneering for its day, providing many with the most worthwhile look at the lives of tiny animals ever seen as the beasties ate and reproduced their way through their days.
While insects have pretty much the same needs as humans on the most basic level, they are sufficiently alien to survive this kind of presentation, and indeed thrive upon it. Images of termites going about their daily business, of bees in the hive, or ants sustaining their lifestyle, all of it parades across the screen, somewhat defusing the tension of the commentary thanks to not looking as if they're in any way bothered about what mankind is up to. However, there is the problem of violence, which the filmmakers relished in depicting as carnvivorous plants, spiders and other insects devour their weight in hapless victims, and something to be feared if you give Hellstrom any credence. In one way, there was novelty value in this approach that made the film stand out from the crowd, but in another it's too easy to dismiss a work that seemingly sets out to make the audience squirm. Mind you, those driver ants at the end give one pause... Music by Lalo Schifrin.
