Them! (1954) · 10:21am Jul 29th, 2018

Is there a way I can delete various recommendations from things like say Netflix or Youtube? Oh, they say that these suggestions or whatever they are are based upon what I or somebody watches. They say it's fed into some algorithm to "enhance" my experience. Well, if irritate and outright creep me out are what you were going for mission accomplished.

For some reason Youtube thinks I want to see a woman with crazy eyes pop her tit out so a child who should be on solid food and off the boob breast feed. I don't want to see that. I never wanted to see that. Hell I didn't want to see it when I was in a house that had a new litter of puppies for crying out loud.

Some people will say, "But breast feeding is natural and you shouldn't," blah blah blah. Well to those people I say so is taking a poop and I don't want to see that either. I especially don't want to see it from someone whose still makes me think she's going to cannibalize someone in about five seconds either. But the thing is... I don't want to see ANY of what pops up on the Youtube front page.

I get bad mumble rappers and pop stars from generation auto tune scattered through different lists all staring at me vacantly with their fake tits and inability to string a meaningful set of lyrics together without screaming fuck. I've got eight million "you ___ you lose," videos that keep popping up not that I ever clicked on those either. And so it goes.

Netflix is no prize either. I watched two Hellraiser movies (the good ones), Batman, Philadelphia Story and Lethal Weapon. In response to those choices they gave me links to eighty million Bollywood movies, a few gay movies and a slew of "Look what we made daddy will you put it on the fridge for us? It's the picture of the sun... with period blood. WEEEEE," original programming choices.

You know what would be a crazy idea? Just absolutely nuts? Give me just a search bar and let me go from there. I'll figure it out. I neither need nor want your recommendations. In fact keep them all away from me. This is especially true since these sites keep popping up the same crap repeatedly. I do not need the actual or equivalent of a crazy chick with her tit hanging out staring at me. I know that look. I've dated crazy and I need that as much as I need atomic flesh eating terrors chewing on my genitals.

The things I have to get off of my chest sometimes.

Back in 1945 the Trinity nuclear test happened at White Sands and from it the first atomic bombs were made. After those scientific achievements a new breed of monster movie came out. For the first time in a long time supernatural terrors had to take the back seat to the radioactive terrors that now made their way through cinemas. These mutants came in all shapes and sizes but mostly big. Everything from regular people to leeches were fodder for these types of movies.

In 1954 one of the first and best versions of this type of film came out. Starting in the New Mexican desert two police officers (James Whitmore and Chris Drake) and a helicopter are on patrol when they notice a little girl wandering near the road. She's in shock. The police investigate where it seems she came from and discover a puzzling and horrific sight at the trailer they were traveling in.

They investigate the scene and for the crime scene guys to come out. On a possible lead they head to a local general goods store only to find a similarly eerie scene. Soon after the FBI (James Arness) and two scientists (Edmund Gwenn and Joan Weldon) get involved. It isn't long before our nuclear threat makes its presence known to the audience and the threat to all life on the planet becomes real.

Them! is a classic monster movie. Its influence on movies like Aliens for example cannot be overstated. But what makes this movie really work unlike several of the others that came out at this time or later is that it's a quality film along with being a monster movie too. The acting is quite good as are the special effects. The movie never drags and just enough exposition is given to allow the audience and the characters to know the seriousness of the threat.

Them! was a huge box office hit for Warner Bros. and in a lot of ways still holds up today and helped launch the careers of some of the leads in the movie. It's also interesting to see who is in some of the bit parts as well (see if you can spot Leonard Nimoy and Dick York among others).

Give this one a watch. I certainly didn't need an algorithm to recommend it to me.

Dead Bodies: approximately 11 (there is some carnage involving a ship and I don't know just how many people were on board), Breasts: 0, Pincers to the torso, collapsing beams, formic acid poisoning, bug flambe, bugs shot, Flame Thrower fu, Gun fu, Bazooka fu, creepy ant noise fu.

Shout outs:

James Whitmore as police Sgt. Ben Peterson for doing his all to save folks and telling his boss that, "I have a score to settle," with the bugs.

James Arness as FBI agent Robert Graham who is also heroic and has some funny lines like, "If I can raise an arm after this I'll show you how saturated I can get."

Edmund Gwenn as Dr. Harold Medford a myrmecologist who figures things out pretty quick and is able to convince the military to take the threat seriously.

Joan Weldon as Dr. Pat Medford for the line, "Burn it. Burn everything."

Finally the ants who look great and are menacing even though they just want some sugar... to go along with the people they munch on.