Of Giant Monsters…
There’s a special place in my heart for 1950’s horror movies, especially those featuring giant monsters…and it’s hard to think of a better tag line for one than, “This was the day that engulfed the world in terror!” More than 60 years after its 1957 debut, The Deadly Mantis continues to be entertaining as a high camp classic, more amusing now than horrifying. The clumsy and dated not-so-special effects of the giant mantis flying are alone worth watching the film for.
In these times of invisible horrors like the coronavirus, it’s so nice to see our fears embodied as something gigantic and readily identifiable that we can shoot artillery at, and direct flame throwers towards; we know that we’re going to win against it at the end. I doubt, however, that bleach and bright lights would be effective against this thing. Perhaps we can get a large number of regular praying mantids together, and make one really big one like this that we could threaten murder hornets with. A Universal Picture creation, one yearns to see the Deadly Mantis locked in mortal combat with some creature from the Toho Studios world…Mothra vs. Mantis has a nice ring to it. Now that’s entertainment…I’d go bugs over that one!
Explore posts in the same categories: animals, horror, insects, movies, sci fi, twisted reality
Tags: The Deadly Mantis, vintage sci-fi
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FOXSYLVANIA 
May 21, 2020 at 12:23 am
How true your words do ring!
Just now, my mother watched an episode of “The Dr. Pol Show” (that Animal Planet series about the bald veterinarian). And, in this episode, some poor dairy cow strained so hard in giving birth to her calf, that she also pushed out her uterus! Necessitating the stuffing back therein of the latter.
I can only imagine how “udderly” painful it was. :eye roll:
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May 21, 2020 at 11:42 am
“Show me a dull cow, and I’ll show you a milk dud.” – – Soupy Sales 🙂
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May 21, 2020 at 4:27 pm
Btw: I read, on-line, that the shot of Old D.M. on the Washington Monument…was a real mantis. In a forced perspective close-up of a scale model of the monument!
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May 22, 2020 at 8:50 am
You could tell by that scene that it was a real mantis; overall, the film should have used more actual footage. As the song goes, “Ain’t nothing like the real thing, Baby…”
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May 21, 2020 at 12:24 am
Emojis still suck. 😛
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