Monster of the Day #132

Updated on November 10, 2010 By Ken Begg 9 Comments


Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! That’s good stuff.

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  • The Rev.

    This movie didn’t have enough mantis, I thought. It’s not bad, but there are better giant bug movies out there.

    I do like the rig they used to bring him to the screen, though. Even with his very unmantislike mouth and lack of antennae. They did really well with everything else, though, especially the front legs. He’s kind of ugly/cute, like a pug.

    I just wish they hadn’t put in that shot of a real mantis. It really brings the flaws to the fore, and that’s not the rig’s fault since how often do special effects match real life?

  • BeckoningChasm

    “Hey, who’s been messing with my toy cars?! MO-OM!!”

  • Yes, the movie’s not that great (it’s no Black Scorpion, much less them), but I’m with you on all the other points as well. It’s a damn cool monster. And yep, that real mantis shot is pretty misguided; although I wouldn’t mind having the little mock-up of the Washington Memorial they used!

  • Erroneous shots just make the movie more adorable. We were watching THE MONSTER THAT CHALLENGED THE WORLD last week and my son and I were thrilled when we learned that humanity descended from molluscs.

  • The Rev.

    In this case, the erroneous shot made me wish we’d had more of the real mantis crawling around on tiny sets. That WM mock-up was great. I’d have loved to see it running around on the Pentagon or someething.

    I found a mantis sitting on the roof of my car not long after I moved to Texas and I examined it for minutes on end (we didn’t have them in Iowa). It obliged me by just sitting there so I could check it out to my heart’s content. Then I remembered I had somewhere to be, and gently poked it to get it moving. That was when I found out, to my shock, that those things can RUN. It went across the roof, dropped to the hood, and scampered off the far end and down to the ground, all in 2 seconds flat. MAN that was awesome. Sadly, I haven’t seen any since.

  • Actually, Rev, there are mantis in Iowa, or at least around where I reside. My brother Todd caught three (one at a time, mind) had them as pets for a while. Wicked things. But neat.

    I’ve always been sort of envious of him for that. I’m lucky to see a grasshopper…

  • Rock Baker

    I love the miniature work in The Deadly Mantis. The bus that gets overturned, the tunnel set, the Army base that gets attacked, just great stuff!

    Mantis are pretty common around here, or have become so, I don’t remember seeing quite as many a few years ago. Also common are stick insects, the insect I’d like to use for a giant bug movie someday (not that they’re deadly or anything, but one would look cool clutching a skyscraper like that shot in Mant!). I actually filmed some footage of one crawling around on the base from a Gigantics model using my Super 8 camera, but I couldn’t afford to get the film processed and they’ve since stopped processing that brand of film! Now I may never see how the footage came out (nor my miniature volcano, or landslide, or flying saucer crash, or high school beauty Everdawn Jarret doing a wiggle-walk for the camera!). Thank Heaven my stop motion test footage got processed when it did!

  • I can’t watch ‘The Daedly Mantis’ without singing:
    “Oh Holy Bomb.”
    “Oh Holy and mighty Bomb.”
    “Oh Holy and eternal Bomb.”

  • The Rev.

    cullen: I figured someone’d come along and tell me we had them somewhere in the state and make me sad that I wasn’t in that part of the state. I spent a lot of time running around the outdoors as a kid, and found a lot of various insects, but never a mantis. I’ve never heard of one being found anywhere around my home area, either. Ah well, we had plenty of critters to keep me occupied.