DEAD ANT (2017)

Studio:       Cinedigm
Director:    Ron Carlson
Writer:       Ron Carlson
Producer:  Ron Carlson, Stephanie Hodos, Mark Hodos
Stars:     Tom Arnold, Rhys Coiro, Jake Busey, Leisha Hailey, Cameron Richardson, Sydney Sweeney, Danny Woodburn, Joi Liaye, Michael Horse, Sean Astin

Review Score:

---

Summary:

Giant ants threaten to slaughter a washed-up glam rock band on their way to a comeback concert at a desert music festival.

---

Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

In the California desert, Native American medicine man Bigfoot and his dwarf sidekick Firecracker sell a young woman a powerful peyote known as “the sun.” Bigfoot warns the woman to leave the creatures of the sacred land unharmed while on the drug, but she ends up chased and killed by a giant ant after stripping naked.

While their drummer Stevie and bass player Art drive the pickup truck up front, band manager Danny Blue, guitarist Pager, singer Merick, and Merick’s groupie Love ride in an airstream trailer. Having recently changed their name back to Sonic Grave after an unsuccessful rebranding stint as Time Warp, Danny explains that he booked the 80s hair metal band for the No-chella alternative desert music festival, where they will have to play their one-hit wonder power ballad ‘Don’t Close Your Eyes.’

The band stops at Bigfoot’s roadside organic fruits and vegetables stand to purchase his peyote. Pager meets young girls Sam and Lisa, who are on their way to the music festival. Bigfoot repeats his warning to not hurt anything on the sacred land while under the drug’s influence or else they will be cursed until the next sundown.

The band makes camp in the desert. Everyone takes the peyote except for Danny.

Art stumbles off alone while high and purposefully pisses on an ant. The ant unexpectedly taunts Art verbally before attacking. Art ends up swarmed by ants that gradually increase in size.

The rest of the band continues tripping as night falls. Feeling inspired, Pager writes a song called ‘Side Boob.’ Sam and Lisa arrive at the campsite to join the band. Merick breaks his leg when he dives off a rock believing he can fly.

In the morning, Danny berates everyone for getting high when he wanted them to have a spiritual quest so Sonic Grave could write another hit. With ants devouring his flesh, Art stumbles back to camp and drops dead. Oversized ants overrun the camp, prompting Danny, Merick, Pager, Stevie, Love, and Sam to barricade themselves in the trailer. Lisa gets separated and takes refuge in Sam’s car. Bigfoot and Firecracker observe the commotion from a distance and prepare to mount a rescue.

The band realizes they cannot leave because Art had the truck keys. They are forced to watch helplessly when Lisa inadvertently blows herself up along with the car while fighting off an ant attack. Stevie notices that every time they kill an ant, the other ants grow larger. Merick theorizes that they need to disrupt the ants’ antennae to destroy the colony.

Ants begin carrying away the trailer. Danny loses his left hand when an ant attacks through a window. The ants eventually retreat underground to grow once more.

Danny and Stevie help Merick back to the truck while Pager, Love, and Sam retrieve the keys from Art’s corpse. An ant swarm suddenly chases Pager’s trio back to the truck. Ants bloodily devour Sam. Danny, Stevie, Merick, Pager, and Love escape in the truck toward No-chella with giant ants in feverish pursuit.

Bigfoot and Firecracker arrive at No-chella to warn everyone about the impending ant attack, but are unable to get past security. As Sonic Grave arrives, giant ants descend upon the festival, throwing everyone into a panic. Danny loses his other hand in the chaos.

Pager, Stevie, and Merick eventually make it to the stage to play a song. Merick’s voice as well as the music causes numerous ant heads to explode. The remaining swarm retreats into the desert while festival-goers hail Sonic Grave as heroes.

---

Review:

In introducing his movie at its Screamfest 2017 premiere, writer/director Ron Carlson likened the creature feature campiness of “Dead Ant” to ‘Playboy,’ as opposed to more serious mainstream fare that might be equivalent to ‘The New Yorker.’  It was the filmmaker’s way of saying his contemporary drive-in flick is more about exciting imagery than academic insight, a titillating taboo you can’t wait to share with an adolescent buddy afterward.

Carlson was on the right track, but riding the wrong train.  “Dead Ant” doesn’t have the polished profile of smooth sophistication to be on par with ‘Playboy.’  It’s more akin to ‘Hustler’ without the smut, containing cheaper, less conventionally couth content smeared with greasy fingerprints, where fans have no hope of hiding behind an “I just read it for the articles” excuse.

Following an unsuccessful rebrand, endlessly wearied band manager Danny Blue (Tom Arnold) has one-hit wonder glam rockers Sonic Grave booked for a comeback concert.  Sort of.  Merick (Jake Busey), Pager (Rhys Coiro), Art (Sean Astin), and Stevie (Leisha Hailey) assume they are headed to Coachella.  Danny explains they are actually playing No-chella, the redheaded stepchild of desert music festivals.

Along the way, the band stops at a roadside organic fruit stand run by a mysterious medicine man.  Pager picks up a pair of new groupies to join the one already in the trailer.  The other musicians pick up a powerful peyote known as “the sun.”

After making camp on sacred land nearby, the medicine man’s warning to not harm any creatures while experiencing the drug goes unheeded when Art drowns an ant in urine.  Art quickly regrets his choice of toilet when that ant issues a verbal threat followed by the arrival of a flesh-eating swarm.

If that scenario weren’t impossible enough, it soon becomes clear that each time an ant is destroyed, the other ants increase in size.  Completing their single ‘Side Boob’ will have to wait.  Sonic Grave’s new gig pits them against a colony of enormous killer ants, and they are outnumbered 100,000 to one.

When a plot essentially pitches itself as, “Tom Arnold plays the motormouth manager of a washed-up hair metal band fronted by Jake Busey fighting giant ants at a desert music festival,” you expect a certain amount of fun.  “Dead Ant” delivers a certain amount too, just not the whole kit ‘n kaboodle of craziness promised by that premise.

A pretty pumped audience greeted “Dead Ant” with enthusiasm for its debut in the main auditorium of Grauman’s Chinese.  Mild chuckles gradually waned into little reaction at all however, as lukewarm jokes regularly landed without impact, were misplaced between awkward edits, or found themselves lost in a cacophony of garbled shouts when onscreen action grew hectic.  I consistently felt myself wanting to laugh far more, but regrettably realized the movie wasn’t always doing its job in motivating me to do so.

Stunted early pacing takes too many cues from stoner comedy slowness.  Inherently by virtue of its wild idea, you’d think “Dead Ant” would be irreverently edgy.  Instead, it’s missing a colorful vibrancy that would send more snappiness into its style.  “Dead Ant” is closer in spirit to the middle-aged novelty hair metal is now, not entirely embodying the attitude of outstretched tongues confidently crying “rock ‘n roll!” with a fist raised in devil horns.

As expected, hair metal songs dot the soundtrack.  Unexpectedly, these inclusions are far between.  80s glam rock, which can’t be a bankbuster to license, should be moving the mood and setting tone through sound.  “Dead Ant” occasionally seems to neglect its core concept though, content to push momentum through tame material that capable acting can only carry so far.

Tom Arnold in particular puts enormous passion into his performance, although the script doesn’t fully reward him for his effort.  Some of his input appears to be improv as he channels a manic Michael Madsen behind Fat Elvis glasses.  Arnold’s persona alone makes most of his scenes sizzle, while his misses highlight the kind of deficiencies that make one wish “Dead Ant” had more hilarity on hand.

“Dead Ant” means well, yet comes closer to cheap than to enjoyably cheesy, even in the realm of B-movies slanted toward a Saturday night Syfy audience.  Ron Carlson reportedly spent a full year in Russia generating over 700 VFX shots via CGI.  I gritted my teeth at this revelation while thinking, “one year on effects and this is as good as it gets?”  Sure, goofiness constitutes part of the intended look.  But obvious green screens and digital layers make “Return of the Jedi’s” Rancor look positively cutting edge by comparison.

All in all, enough entertainment value exists for “Dead Ant” to be a fun lark, provided expectations are set to reasonable romp rather than raucous riot.  If only the film had longer, stronger legs, perhaps it could have been ‘Playboy’ instead of ‘Hustler.’

Review Score:  55

---