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Them!: Difference between revisions
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Classic 1954 horror/sci-fi movie. A little girl is found wandering in the New Mexican desert, the only survivor of an unknown calamity that befell her vacationing family. When roused from her catatonia, she can only scream [[Title Drop|"Theeeeem!"]] Official investigation finally leads to the discovery that the culprits are Cadillac-sized ants, [[I Love Nuclear Power|mutated by atomic radiation]]. The race is then on to locate and destroy the ants' nest before new queens hatch out and fly across the world.
Made a ton of money for [[Warner Brothers]], and so helped establish many of the giant-monster-running-amok cliches for American cinema. Sadly, the vast majority of [[Follow the Leader|its imitators]] lacked the budget ''and'' the writing and acting talent on display here.
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* [[Big Creepy-Crawlies]]
* [[Bug War]]
* [[Friend to All Children]] -Peterson. It's pretty obvious from his actions and body language that children in any kind of distress really upsets him.
* [[Genre Shift]] - Starts out as a low-key podunk police investigation, ends with flamethrower assaults in the Los Angeles sewer.
* [[Good Name for A Rock Band]] - [[Van Morrison]] and company named their band after the film.
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* [[Splash of Color]]: The entire movie is gray scale with the exception of the title at the start.
* [[Square-Cube Law]] - Obviously ignored, but let's face it - you couldn't have the movie if you didn't.
* [[Stay in the Kitchen]] - Impressively averted, considering the era it was made. The military gasses the nest of giant killer ants, and the next stage is for someone to go down into the nest and confirm they're all dead. This is universally recognized as a [[Darkness Equals Death|very bad idea]], yet [[Hot Scientist]] Dr. Pat Medford argues firmly and convincingly that she ''has'' to go down into the nest as her father is too old and she can't give the two male leads "a crash course in entomology".
* [[Stock Scream]] - Several uses of the Wilhelm Scream. (Although this was long before it became an example of this trope.)
* [[The End - or Is It?]] - {{spoiler|The ants are all wiped out, but Dr. Medford Sr. issues a grim warning; the atomic genie is out the bottle...}}
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{{quote|"THEM! THEM!"}}
* [[Too Dumb to Live]] - No one noticed a bunch of giant ants nesting on a ship? This is at least lampshaded when a character asks the same question.
* [[Artistic License: Biology|You Fail Biology Forever]] - Well, could be [[Rule of Scary]], but for the record ants, at least ones in America, don't make noise. [[Tropes Are Not Bad|The sound]] ''[[Tropes Are Not Bad|is]]'' [[Tropes Are Not Bad|very chilling.]]
{{reflist}}
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