Don't expect "Them," and you won't be disappointed. Take it as the SciFi Channel intended it to be, a lighthearted, escapist giant ant made-for-TV flick with funny lines strewn throughout, and you'll be entertained for ninety minutes. Listen for the humor in the script delivered knowingly by such veteran Thespians as Andrew Prine and Stella Stevens, who is still gorgeous after all these years. While C. Thomas Howell is no longer the teen heart throb of yesterday (my daughter when a teen in the 80's had a huge, sexy photo of Howell draping her closet door), he is still a competent actor. The entire cast shines with no one actually taking his/her part too seriously.
The special effects are bargain basement, which used to be understandable when the producers were low on funds and special effects were so expensive. But today with computer-generated imagery (CGI) the viewer expects more, even from budget films. The giant ants look like cheap plastic models which is probably what they are.
The direction is not bad coming from one who moonlights as a wrestler with the moniker "Fabulous" Freddie Valentine. And the script, with lines such as,"She's found Charlie!" when the USDA lady stumbles on the bloody bones of a greenhouse worker, is often witty and clever. The camera work is at times dazzling, especially toward the end of the film when viewers are treated to a view of Lulu and Mila (Ana Alexander and Diana Kauffman respectively) shimmying across a wire exposing their thong-clad derrières.
The story is predictable and trite about mutant ants, puffed up by radiation, running amok in a high rise office building in beautiful downtown Burbank (or some such locale), hence the title,"The Glass Trap," terrorizing several intended victims trapped for various reasons inside on a Saturday. As with most "people trapped inside a building on Saturday" movies, each one has unfulfilled dreams and ambitions. There is always at least one who has a hidden past. This time it's the janitor, Curtis (C. Thomas Howell). Just as the humongous bloodthirsty ants attack, dripping formic acid all over the place, those desperately escaping up a shaft ladder to the roof pause for Curtis to explain to everyone why he has a rap sheet. Sorry, I won't give away that part of the movie.
