1980s
heavy metal hair bands haven’t died. They are just in denial. Sonic Grave is
convinced they will make an inevitable comeback, despite changing tastes and
their lack of talent. However, the rampaging giant formicidae might finally force
them to face what passes for reality in this goofball stoner movie. They can
blame the peyote for unleashing some massively bad mojo, but it is all really
their own fault in Ron Carlson’s Dead Ant
(trailer
here),
which opens this Friday in select cities.
Frankly,
Sonic Grave does not take itself too seriously, so why should we? Their
loudmouth manager with a martyr complex has booked them at No-chella, the down-market
alternative to Coachella. Naturally, they stop for some peyote on the way. “Bigfoot,”
the native dealer warns them not to harm any element of nature while they are
tripping or it will boomerang back on them. Of course, Art the bassist starts
tripping early and then “disrespects” some ants. It works out badly for him.
Soon,
Sonic Grave have an early Roger Corman movie on their hands, except it isn’t as
fun (despite being an intentional comedy). Yes, this might be hard to believe,
but it turns out a giant ant movie starring Tom Arnold is kind of lame. Arnold
certainly does not help much as the compulsively verbose manager. Dude, shut
up. It is also pretty stunning to see Michael Horse, the reliably tough and
cool Native American actor, playing the shticky Bigfoot (seriously, he was
Deputy Hawk on Twin Peaks).
As
Sonic Grave band members, Sean Astin, Jake Bussey, and Rhys Coiro mug and chew
the scenery shamelessly. Arguably, Sydney Sweeney gets the biggest laugh of the
film old-shaming Coiro’s Pager, but then script has her acting like a
super-available groupie minutes later.
Reportedly,
Carlson spent a year perfecting the digital effects for the rampaging ants.
Some of that time might have been better used punching-up the script. The ants
look okay, but the “wow factor” in this film is minimal. Yet, let’s be honest—in
a movie like this, we want the ants to look cheesy.
It
is not obvious from the final film whether Carlson has nostalgic affection for
either old Corman-style monster movies or 80s hair bands, which is a problem.
Frankly, it makes It Came from the Desert
look like Young Frankenstein. Not
to repeat ourselves, but the tragically under-screened Attack of the Bat Monsters is the best film for early 1960s monster
nostalgia—and it doesn’t even have any real monsters.
