There's about a zillion movies like King of the Ants sitting on video store shelves or floating around the internet to be bought or rented. You've never heard of them and you don't know anything about them. In my experience, the overwhelming majority of those films suck and suck hard. Some of them are so bad you can't understand why the filmmakers didn't save themselves the embarrassment and burn all the tapes rather than release it to public scorn. Every once in a while, though, one of those unknown films turns out to be pretty good. King of the Ants is one of those good ones.
Sean Crawley (Chris L. McKenna) is down on his luck. He lives in a crappy apartment and takes whatever menial jobs he can find to pay the bills. On a house painting job he runs into "Duke" Wayne (George Wendt), a rotund electrician who winds up asking Sean what is his dream in life. "Duke" laughs at Sean's fantasy of being a private eye like the ones in the movies, whose lives are filled with fast cars and faster women, but he takes something about it seriously. Sean gets introduced to "Duke's" boss, Ray Matthews (Daniel Baldwin). Ray asks Sean to spy on an accountant who works for the city. Sean follows him around, catches sight of the accountant's beautiful wife, and reports back to "Duke".
Then Ray shows up at Sean's crappy apartment, drunk and disheveled late one night, and asks Sean if he'll kill the accountant. Sean hems and haws and insists on a lot of conditions, but he agrees to do it. After the disturbingly difficult murder, Sean wants his money. "Duke", however, makes it clear to Sean that the murder was a mistake, Sean's not getting any money and should just get the hell out of town. Thinking this is just like the movies, Sean demands his money and lets "Duke" know that if anything happens to him a file will be sent to the cops, implicating Ray in the accountant's murder.
Sean thinks they may beat him up a little but they won't kill him as long as they don't have the file. That's when Sean gets dragged out to a shed in the desert and Ray informs him that they aren't going to kill him. They're just going to beat him until he's left a brainless vegetable. Maybe the file will come out and maybe it won't. Ray is willing to take his chances on that. What follows is a series of beatings that are closer to the unvarnished brutality of the original The Last House on the Left than most movies ever try to get and hallucinations that are honestly disturbing. If you want to know what happens to Sean after the shed and what becomes of the dead accountant's beautiful wife you'll have to watch the film yourself.
There are a lot of nice things about King of the Ants. I think what's most praiseworthy is its untheatrical approach to violence. Beating and killing people in the real world is a hard, ugly and messy business and that's the way it is in this movie. On paper, the stuff that happens in this story is relatively tame by modern standards of cinematic carnage. But the acts of violence are so simply and starkly presented, with no effort to exaggerate or make it look more impressive, that it is all far more powerful and affecting than the vastly more elaborate ballets of death and destruction in other movies.
Acting-wise, Chris L. McKenna is okay and Daniel Baldwin chews a bit too much scenery. George Wendt, however, does a very fine job as "Duke". Wendt creates a frightening character without ever going over the top or being too stylish or mannered in his performance. "Duke" isn't crazy or casually vicious. He would have been happy to have Sean simply get out of town. He's just a guy who has no problem inflicting pain and suffering on other people if he's told it's necessary. The two henchmen who help Duke, played by Lionel Mark Smith and Vernon Wells, are also disconcertingly normal. Most movie villains are different than ordinary people. They're more charismatic or more disturbed, but they very much fit the role of The Other. "Duke" and his thugs are just like the guys who see down at the bar or sit next to you at the football game, making them and their actions more shocking and horrifying.
King of the Ants isn't perfect. There's some fairly shoddy camera-work throughout the film and the movie ignores the fact that Sean is just as bad (or maybe even worse) than Ray and his guys. That becomes a bit of a problem in the second half of the film and renders the ending somewhat emotionally sterile.
Quibbling aside, the folks who made King of the Ants had a real story to tell with a real point to make. If you just look at the DVD cover on the shelf or on your computer screen, you'll think it's just like all those other sucky movies you've never heard of. I'm here to tell you it's a lot better than that.
Sean Crawley (Chris L. McKenna) is down on his luck. He lives in a crappy apartment and takes whatever menial jobs he can find to pay the bills. On a house painting job he runs into "Duke" Wayne (George Wendt), a rotund electrician who winds up asking Sean what is his dream in life. "Duke" laughs at Sean's fantasy of being a private eye like the ones in the movies, whose lives are filled with fast cars and faster women, but he takes something about it seriously. Sean gets introduced to "Duke's" boss, Ray Matthews (Daniel Baldwin). Ray asks Sean to spy on an accountant who works for the city. Sean follows him around, catches sight of the accountant's beautiful wife, and reports back to "Duke".
Then Ray shows up at Sean's crappy apartment, drunk and disheveled late one night, and asks Sean if he'll kill the accountant. Sean hems and haws and insists on a lot of conditions, but he agrees to do it. After the disturbingly difficult murder, Sean wants his money. "Duke", however, makes it clear to Sean that the murder was a mistake, Sean's not getting any money and should just get the hell out of town. Thinking this is just like the movies, Sean demands his money and lets "Duke" know that if anything happens to him a file will be sent to the cops, implicating Ray in the accountant's murder.
Sean thinks they may beat him up a little but they won't kill him as long as they don't have the file. That's when Sean gets dragged out to a shed in the desert and Ray informs him that they aren't going to kill him. They're just going to beat him until he's left a brainless vegetable. Maybe the file will come out and maybe it won't. Ray is willing to take his chances on that. What follows is a series of beatings that are closer to the unvarnished brutality of the original The Last House on the Left than most movies ever try to get and hallucinations that are honestly disturbing. If you want to know what happens to Sean after the shed and what becomes of the dead accountant's beautiful wife you'll have to watch the film yourself.
There are a lot of nice things about King of the Ants. I think what's most praiseworthy is its untheatrical approach to violence. Beating and killing people in the real world is a hard, ugly and messy business and that's the way it is in this movie. On paper, the stuff that happens in this story is relatively tame by modern standards of cinematic carnage. But the acts of violence are so simply and starkly presented, with no effort to exaggerate or make it look more impressive, that it is all far more powerful and affecting than the vastly more elaborate ballets of death and destruction in other movies.
Acting-wise, Chris L. McKenna is okay and Daniel Baldwin chews a bit too much scenery. George Wendt, however, does a very fine job as "Duke". Wendt creates a frightening character without ever going over the top or being too stylish or mannered in his performance. "Duke" isn't crazy or casually vicious. He would have been happy to have Sean simply get out of town. He's just a guy who has no problem inflicting pain and suffering on other people if he's told it's necessary. The two henchmen who help Duke, played by Lionel Mark Smith and Vernon Wells, are also disconcertingly normal. Most movie villains are different than ordinary people. They're more charismatic or more disturbed, but they very much fit the role of The Other. "Duke" and his thugs are just like the guys who see down at the bar or sit next to you at the football game, making them and their actions more shocking and horrifying.
King of the Ants isn't perfect. There's some fairly shoddy camera-work throughout the film and the movie ignores the fact that Sean is just as bad (or maybe even worse) than Ray and his guys. That becomes a bit of a problem in the second half of the film and renders the ending somewhat emotionally sterile.
Quibbling aside, the folks who made King of the Ants had a real story to tell with a real point to make. If you just look at the DVD cover on the shelf or on your computer screen, you'll think it's just like all those other sucky movies you've never heard of. I'm here to tell you it's a lot better than that.