Scream Factory Runs Amok Announcing Empire of the Ants, Tentacles, Jaws of Satan, and Reptilicus for 2015
Nature must be running amok at Scream Factory seeing as how they decided to follow up their Food of the Gods/Frogs double feature Blu-ray surprise with news that Empire of the Ants, Tentacles, Jaws of Satan, and Reptilicus are also going Blu next year.
Did I call this in my Food of the Gods/Frogs article or what? Substitute Yongary with Jaws of Satan, and I would have nailed all four of these titles.
It probably would have made more sense to pair Bert I. Gordon’s Empire of the Ants with his Food of the Gods, but who am I to argue with how Scream Factory operates? Instead, Gordon’s 1977 H.G. Wells’ adaptation that sees the likes of Joan Collins and Robert Lansing battling giant ants in the Florida Everglades mind-controlling humans into toiling in their sugar plantations will be paired with the more obscure satanic snake flick Jaws of Satan.
Jaws of Satan is what you get when you combine your Seventies satanic panic flick with your even more Seventies nature gone amok flick and then wait until 1981 to release it. Fritz Weaver and an adolescent Christina Applegate star in this tale of a Southern preacher battling a cobra possessed by Satan and a horde of its slithering, venomous minions.
The second double feature Blu-ray they announced is simply mind-blowing. I mean, Tentacles, one of the very worst Jaws rip-offs of all time, is actually getting a hi-def transfer before some of the greatest movies of any genre have made their way to the format? Don’t get me wrong. I have a soft spot for Tentacles simply because it is so astoundingly awful in every conceivable way, but still.
Beyond the Door director Ovidio G. Assonitis somehow managed to wrangle major name actors of the time (John Huston, Shelley Winters, Bo Hopkins, Claude Akins, and even Henry Fonda) to appear in this ineptly assembled, Italian-produced, 1977 Jaws rip-off about a giant man-eating, roaring octopus terrorizing a seaside resort.
Paired with Tentacles will be the finest Danish Godzilla rip-off ever made. Of course I speak of Sid Pink’s 1961 giant creature feature Reptilicus.
After copper miners discover the tail of a long dead prehistoric creature, the serpentine behemoth regenerates and unleashes marionette monster mayhem on the nation of Denmark.
Odds are even Scream Factory will not be releasing the original Danish cut of the film that featured not only silhouette model on string flying monster effects that would make even Edward D. Wood Jr. recoil in horror, but also the movie’s big musical number American audiences have long been denied where a kindly oaf sings a nursery rhyme about the legend of Reptilicus as school children rhythmically frolic.
Even Scream Factory concedes extras will be slim when it comes to these titles for what should be obvious reasons. No matter. Just go ahead and take my money already.
Look for Empire of the Ants/Jaws of Satan and Tentacles/Reptilicus double-feature Blu-rays courtesy of Scream Factory sometime next summer.
What will Scream Factory announce next? You can pretty much look up what titles MGM previously released as part of their “Midnight Movies” series for a good idea of what’s left to pick from. I’m personally still holding out hope for The Vindicator, The Hidden, Critters, Chopping Mall, Split Second, Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge, and/or King Kong Lives. Honestly, I’m just tossing out a series of titles in hopes that I get even one correct so I can do the Nikki Finke “Toldja!” again when they announce it.
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