RESEARCH General Arts

INSECT FEAR
Film fest fetes director big on bugs – the bigger the better

Jim Barlow, Life Sciences Editor
(217) 333-5802; b-james3@uiuc.edu

2/1/03

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — In celebration of its 20th bug-infested anniversary, the Insect Fear Film Festival at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is bringing in Mr. BIG – movie director Bert I. Gordon – to help honor the 50-year-old genre of low-budget films featuring large killer insects. The festival will feature three of Gordon’s big bug films – "Beginning of the End" (1957), "Earth vs. the Spider" (1958) and "Empire of the Ants" (1977).

"Gordon’s first big bug film, `The Beginning of the End,’ is my absolute No. 1 favorite insect fear film," said festival founder May Berenbaum, head of the department of entomology. "Among other things, it is set in central Illinois, albeit a central Illinois with mountains in the background.
There could not be a more appropriate film for our 20th festival." In the film, Peter Graves stars as government scientist Ed Wainwright whose atomic crop-enhancing experiments go awry. Grasshoppers grow to enormous size and begin a destructive march from Ludlow to Chicago.

In "Earth vs. the Spider," Ed Kemmer, as a high school biology teacher, teams with students to defeat a giant spider threatening the town’s teenagers. "Empire of the Ants" features Joan Collins as a ruthless real estate agent selling land on an island previously used as a toxic waste dump that has become home to giant, intelligent killer ants.

Gordon, 80, has Midwest roots. He was born in Kenosha, Wis., and went to the University of Wisconsin. After starting out in film making commercials, Gordon moved to Hollywood as production supervisor for the 1951-53 television series "Racket Squad." He then moved into low-budget films featuring giant creatures and eventually made 10 such films, spanning the period from 1954 to 1977.

"Gordon helped create the genre, which has become an enduring part of American culture," Berenbaum said. "These films keep coming out, year after year, and Bert I. Gordon helped to make that possible."

The Insect Fear Film Festival began in 1984 as an educational outreach effort. Although big bug films are popular with filmgoers, the big bugs featured in them violate many basic biological principles. The Entomology Graduate Student Association works with Berenbaum to plan an event each year that contrasts real insect biology with Hollywood’s version. Over two decades, thousands of festival-goers have learned a lot about insects, including, for example, why they’re not likely to grow to the size of Greyhound buses. The students also have had fun in the process.

This year’s festival, free and open to the public, will be on Feb. 15, in Foellinger Auditorium on the Quad. Doors open at 6 p.m. There will be insect petting zoos, displays, and activities in the foyer. Introductions will start at 7 p.m. A question-and-answer session with Gordon also will be featured.
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