Legion of Fire: Killer Ants! (Marabunta) Review
The late 90s were not a perfect time to be alive. Yes, on one hand they were a more epic version of the 80s when it came to sacrificing the comfort zone the latter offered. But when you gave that comfort zone up you were inviting a low to contradict the high. In a nutshell they were very much like Star Wars Episode 1, The Phantom Menace that same decade: A blurring between the very best that the late 70s and the early 80s once gave us in exchange for CG visuals that were going to feel iffy most of the time, along with a dated tone that makes utter dullness seem more tolerable. To add insult to injury not only were the 70s trying to bring back the 50s natural horror movies with films like Night of the Lepus or Kingdom of the spiders, but we had also come a long way since TV was brought up around the late 50s. By the 90s television movies could nearly rival big budget productions that could only be possible on celluloid the decade that came before. This is were Legion of Fire: Killer Ants! came in, or Marabunta as it was known internationally (or even originally). On one hand it’s nothing special since killer ants sounds like an idea an edgy elementary schooler could think of. But elementary schoolers are still elementary schoolers, willing to find the wonder and variety in the most mundane, or commonplace, of ideas. In order to watch this movie not only do you have to follow that 90s philosophy by sacrificing your comfort zone, you also have to escape the critical viewpoint that started to saturate the post-Y2K world. It is through that perspective that we are able to find inspiration in the most unexpected yet familiar places. Overall I don't consider myself a hardcore fan, nor even a passionate fan, about horror movies. I just consider myself a big enough fan to say I’ve as far as seen a horror movie about killer ants.