Oh science, what hast thou wrought now? Oh right, giant locusts, or for the more plain spoken folks among us, grasshoppers. You see, Dr. Ed Wainwright, an entomologist, and his partner in science, Frank, a botanist, are working on a study at the US Department of Agriculture Illinois Experimental Station to find ways of growing gigantic, edible fruits and vegetables using radioactive isotopes. Ed's job is to study the relationship and effects of various types of incects and such on the plants. Frank's job, obviously, was to deal with the plants themselves. Unfortunately for Frank however, there was an accident involving the radiation used at the lab, which had caused him to lose both his hearing and his ability to speak. Ed had no idea however that their research had caused anything untoward to happen. That is until a hot young reporter named Audrey came to visit him at his lab. She informed him that a nearby town called Ludlow had been utterly destroyed, and not a single sign was left of any of the people that had lived there. A local grain storage barn had also been destroyed, and all traces of the grain were gone. Audrey had already talked to the National Guard troops that were there, but now she was on the case, and following a hunch, went to the only research lab in the area that was using radiation.

Audrey convinced Ed to go out on an investigation of the destroyed grain storage, and Frank happily decided to tag along, which as it turns out, was a big mistake for him, as they found what they were looking for. One of the giant locusts kills Frank. It's then that Ed realizes what must have happened. The locusts had gotten into their research lab and eaten the radioactive plants. That caused them to grow to an enormous size, and the discovery and consumption of the grain in the storage barn, allowed them to grow even larger, until most of them were easily the size of a bus, or even larger. This discover leads Audrey and Ed on a quest to convince, first the National Guard, and then the full on United States military to take action to stop these giant creatures before they can wipe out Chicago, and then continue to spread until eventually, they wipe out all of mankind. How will they stop this gigantic insectoid menace? You'll have to watch the movie to find out.

In the history of classic b-movies, there have been a huge number of films that have used creatures mutated by radiation as the main threat in the story. A number of these types of films involved generally unrecognizable monsters, while others kept it more realistic, using giant bugs rather than fantastically bizarre monsters. This was actually a brilliant move in many way, as it took advantage of the natural revulsion that mankind feels toward pretty much anything that has to do with bugs. Of these films, there were generally three types. The first type created their giant bugs using stop motion animation, as was the case with The Black Scorpion. The second type actually created large, physical bugs that moved around and could interact in a scene in realtime according to what the story had them doing, as was the case with Them!. The third type of these films, which included this one, used real life bugs and special effects to make them look enormous. There are benefits and drawbacks to each of these types of films.

For the stop motion films, the biggest benefit is that you can place your creature in virtually any environment and have him interact with that environment in any way you see fit. The biggest drawback is, because the motion is slightly jerky, it takes away a lot of the realism of the creature.

For the films like Them! that use large, physical costume, models, etc..., the biggest benefit is that they could have far more natural interactions with the actors than either of the other two types. These are actually physically present in the scene, and as such, it really adds to the realism. The biggest drawback with these types of films however, is that these animatronic type creations, while they can move and interact, have a very limited range of movement that isn't natural looking at all.

This film however, chose to use real insects and special visual effects. The benefit to that is, they're totally real, and as such, kind of give you the creeps while your watching them scurry around the screen. The drawback however is that they can't interact with the cast, or anything else in the film in any kind of a realistic way. They're simply laid into the scene, placed on an image of a building to look like they're crawling up the side of it, etc.... There's also a kind of a strange look when things are blended into a film in this manner. They don't have the same contrasting as the scene they're placed into, nor do they look as sharp or focused as the rest of the scene.

So as you can see, each type of film has its trade-offs. This film actually did a really nice job with the grasshoppers and the way it incorporated them into the various scenes. Unfortunately, that feeling of tension you should be feeling when people's lives are at risk is somewhat lost because of the lack of genuine interaction with the cast and the environment. Still, it was fun to watch them running people down, climbing all over huge buildings, etc....

While this film had a great story to work with and a cast of highly talented actors to play it out, if it suffered from one single problem, I'd say that it actually had too many throwaway characters. Frank, Colonel Barton, Colonel Sturgeon, Dave, and many others that I didn't even mention, had small parts, and then disappeared completely. Now there's two ways you can look at that. You could say that the throwaway characters helped tell the story, while at the same time allowing you to focus on the main characters that had larger parts, or you could say that having so many disposable characters diluted the viewer's experience with the main characters. How one feels about this film will have to be decided individually. Personally, I found myself somewhere in the middle. I guess, looking back on it, many of these characters with the smaller roles added some much needed "color" to the film, and as such, added to the story in their own little ways. In any case, regardless of the size of the role, the cast was simply excellent. They were believable (as much as they could be in a 50's monster movie), and very enjoyable to watch on the screen.

The story in the film is actually presented in a pretty rational and logical way (for a 50's b-movie). Much of what goes on, including their solution to the infestation makes sense in the context of the film. The pacing is just perfect as well. The film never feels like it's rushing along to get to the next scene, nor does it ever feel like it's dragging to the point of having you reach for the fast forward button.

While reviewing these old films, the subject of the visual quality of the transfer often comes up. In the case of this special edition DVD I used from Image Entertainment for this review, I'd have to say the visual quality was quite good. While the contrasting could have been better, and there was plenty of grain in the film, you only really notice that if you take a screen shot. All the shots used in this review have been cleaned and adjusted for purposes of visual quality and clarity, and aren't representative of the quality that was presented on the disc. In general though, the transfer of the film does look quite good, and it's likely you won't notice either of these issues all that much while watching. It's not at the level of quality you see in some of these films that are restored in film labs and such, but for a film from 1957, I have to say it looks really damn good. The sound is great too, except for one thing. The locusts. The sound they used and the levels they inserted it at are not only obnoxious as all get out, but deafening as well. You may not be reaching for the fast forward button with this film, but when those locusts get going, you may find yourself reaching for the volume button.

This special edition disc from Image contains a new digital widescreen transfer at its original 1:66:1 aspect ratio, a still gallery and an audio commentary by Bert I. Gordon's daughter Susan. That's really not enough in the line of extras to call it a special edition, but hey, at least it's something. I don't own the Henstooth release, so I'm not sure what's included with it. Judging by the price of the Image release now though, I'd hazard a guess to say it may be out of print at this point. The Henstooth release is far more reasonably priced. They both have the exact same cover design, which leads me to believe that Henstooth is actually a subsidiary of Image, though I don't know that for sure.

In any case, if you're a fan of classic radioactive monster movies, this is one you'll definitely want to have in your collection, and as such, it's my great pleasure to give it the most excellent rating of...