Saturday night, locals will look on as a benevolent scientist, striving to end world hunger, creates a nutrient that causes a lab tarantula to grow to gigantic size and to escape into the community in search of blood meals.
Then, as area residents watch, helpless to intervene, they'll see two young boys struggle to avoid the vise-like mandibles of giant queen ants that mutated as a result of nuclear testing.
"Tarantula!" (1955) and "Them" (1954) screen Saturday as a science-fiction double feature at Peery's Egyptian Theater.
"I've wanted to see 'Them' for a long time," said John Mull, a Weber State University zoology professor and insect ecology specialist, who conducts lab experiments on ants. "I'm going to tell my students so they can go, too."
Van Summerill said the Egyptian Theater board chose the classic black-and-white films because a critic had proclaimed them two of the best early science-fiction movies of their time.
"I was 12 and 13 when they came out, and I remember being shook up," said Summerill, 68, the theater's historian. "I was not terrified. It was more of a thrill scare you like when you are a kid, and don't realize all the real terrors that are coming when you grow older in life.
"(Film critic) Leonard Maltin points out that the special effects are pretty good for the time," he said. "It's not computer-generated, but it's fun to see how Hollywood solved technical problems in those days."
The films
"Tarantula" tells the story of scientific experimentation gone wrong, and of a creature that seemed very alien to humans roaming the countryside, devouring cattle and leaving behind 8-foot pools of toxic venom as it makes its way to Los Angeles.
"Them!" (featuring actors James Arness and James Whitmore, and look for a young Leonard Nimoy, uncredited, as a fighter pilot) is about atomic age mutant ants who rip houses apart to get to sugar bowls, and who tunnel into the earth to lay chambers full of giant eggs.
Frank Gerrish, a Fruit Heights resident and head of Salt Lake Community College's film studies program, said "Tarantula" and "Them" are part of a genre of '50s horror films that reflected the nation's fear of alien invasion and of nuclear disaster.
"A lot of those movies were about the bomb, the Cold War, and conspiracy theories," Gerrish said. "These films combine that with our natural fear of insects. They're so small, we can't see them or what they are doing, then when we magnify them, our worst fears are staring us straight in the face."
Gerrish, 47, discovered the films as a youth, watching late-night television.
"I saw 'Them' as a kid, and it scared the hell out of me," he said. "Then I saw it again, in college, and we all made fun of it. And now that I'm a professor type, it's all about their significance in history. The movies haven't changed, but my perception of them has."
Gerrish confesses that certain crawlies still give him the creeps.
"They do make me nervous, the more I learn about spiders," he said, with a laugh. "I think what bothers most people about ants is that they are so industrious. The could be conspiring when I'm asleep. I don't know that I like this whole subculture in an underground world I don't understand."
Fearsome insects
Fear of bugs and spiders is pretty universal, said WSU professor Mull, and the reason is not known.
"If I had to pick the best explanation I've heard that makes a lot of sense, it's that insects sting and spiders bite, and some can be vectors for disease," he said. "It makes good evolutionary sense to avoid them."
Mull said there is evidence that babies are born ready to learn certain fears, such as the fear of snakes.
"People have done studies on other primates to show that, especially early in life, there is a period where they are sensitive to learning fears that will keep them safe. And, using snakes as a model for spiders, people all over the world dream with the same frequency of venomous snakes, even without exposure. It's a deep part of our evolutionary history, as is a fear of open spaces and heights. It makes sense that we would be predisposed to avoiding situations that are dangerous."
And for makers of horror films, choosing insect stars we inherently fear adds a guaranteed dose of fright.
"It goes along with exploiting our cravings for salt, fat and sugar," Mull said. "It's easy marketing."
Mull said that insect horror films have a cult following, and have sparked film festivals around the country.
"Biologists use them as an opportunity to educate people," he said. "One entomologist at the University of Illinois, May Berenbaum, even started her own film festival."
Mull said he can enjoy big-bug films because he knows they aren't documentaries. They are entertainment, so inaccuracies don't bother him.
"Ants near nuclear test sites are not larger," he said. "Whatever effects the tests may have had, there have been no dramatic effects on insects."
Wide appeal
Summerill has high hopes that movie fans will be intrigued with the double feature. He's hoping the films will draw in a nostalgic older crowd, lots of younger people who enjoy campy cult films, cinema lovers who want to see the art form's history come alive onscreen, and anyone who wants a top-quality, old-fashioned scare.
"The theater has a tie-in with that period, too," he said. "When the foundation got the Egyptian in 1984, we looked in a basement that runs under the front of the theater, and we found barrels of water and boxes of crackers. We found out the Egyptian was designated as a bomb shelter. It was a fun find.
"I vividly remember being in grade school and we had those atomic drills at Lorin Farr Elementary. They'd have us get under our desks and put our hands over our heads, which was supposed to protect us. It's pretty silly, in retrospect."
The world is half-a-century older and wiser now. But some things never change.
"I still find spiders creepy and crawly," Summerill said. "I had a giant spider in my bathroom sink when I got up this morning. It was huge. I usually try to take them outside, but some spiders deserve to be smashed. It worries me that I can't figure out how it got in my house."
Pest control guy not too worried about giant bugs
Mark Orton doesn't plan to rush out to Peery's Egyptian Theater's big-bug double feature on Saturday.
Pest extermination is the West Point man's day job, and he enjoys his time away from troublesome spiders and ants.
"I don't go out a lot, or see a lot of movies," said Orton, 51, owner of Melodi's Pest Control, named for his daughter. "Sometimes those movies get a little corny, and the more you know about insects, the more you do, there is no way these things can happen."
Orton has 29 years of experience in the field. A few insights, based on his experience:
* The biggest spider Orton has encountered was a 4-inch mountain tarantula he found on Ogden's East Bench. "I took it home and put it in an aquarium, but my wife wouldn't let me keep it in the house, and it froze the first night," he said.
* He's never seen a giant ant, but gets called in to kill carpenter ants on a fairly regular basis. "They work like termites, eating from the inside out," Orton said.
* As for the smaller ants who build mounds in driveway cracks, Orton said they do no real damage, except for removing supportive soil under concrete. Each hill you spot probably represents an underground colony of 3,000 to 5,000 ants, he said.
* And the ants who move indoors tend to be sugar seekers in your kitchen or protein seekers in your bathroom. They're a nuisance, but probably not a nightmare, he said.
* A bigger concern right now seems to be bedbugs, which are getting a lot of attention in the national press. Orton said he has seen a few cases in Utah, but nothing of epidemic proportions. He does check his hotel beds when he travels, and he advises people to carefully examine any secondhand furniture before buying. Bed bugs are happy to travel on fabric, and to infest new spaces.
-- Nancy Van Valkenburg
Standard-Examiner staff
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