Scream Factory gives The Deadly Mantis a great treatment with extras that ensure you'll have a lot of fun with this set.
“What’s worse than a horde of locusts? A gigantic man-eating praying mantis, released from a million years of deep, frozen sleep and ready to claw its way to world domination!
This menacing insect kills everything in its path while scientists and military men work feverishly to stop it. Craig Stevens (Abbott And Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde) stars as the commander in charge of putting an end to this beastly insect with William Hopper (20 Million Miles To Earth) as the paleontologist and Alix Talton (The Man Who Knew Too Much) as his beautiful assistant, a photojournalist, assigned to help in this epic battle between man and mantis!”
The Deadly Mantis opens with a volcano erupting somewhere in the Atlantic with a voice over telling us that for every action, there is an opposite reaction, which clearly means this reaction is that thousands of miles away in Greenland the ice incasing a monstrous creature breaks apart, releasing it unto the unsuspecting victims caught in its path. The creature makes its way south, leaving destroyed military installations and crashed planes in its wake, with only large footprints in the snow as a clue to investigators of the cause. When a giant spur is found in the wreckage of a plane, paleontologist Dr. Jackson is called in to advise the military what they might be dealing with. As Dr. Jackson and his photographer Marge Blaine travel to the military base at the source of the destruction and finally see for themselves the deadly giant mantis that wreaks havoc on the base. As the mantis continues south, the military appeals to the public to help report sightings of the creature before it reaches the lush greens of the tropics where it may thrive!
The Deadly Mantis is a pretty entertaining creature feature, released in the height of their popularity when basically everything was just made giant in order to terrify audiences. What better creature to make massive than a praying mantis? It follows a simple structure that’s shared with all of these kinds of films: military involved in attacking, scientist trying to figure out where it came from, helpless woman caught in the middle.
It’s a very short film, with a run time of only 1 hour and 19 minutes, straightforward and quick to the point. The characters don’t have much depth to them, but do have some interesting interactions and relationships that will help entertain you until you get to see the mantis in its full-scale glory. Unfortunately, there are few scenes with the mantis destroying things, and the buzzing effect used to indicate it’s approaching is overused. Given the limitations of the effects at the time it’s entirely understandable, and if you’re watching this just for the effects then you must be in the wrong place. This creature feature genre definitely has its niche in our culture and continues to instill a child-like excitement in me seeing them. Although I wasn’t around at the height of their popularity, it speaks to a culture of moviegoers that doesn’t exist anymore and will continue to fascinate me.
Video
The Deadly Mantis is presented in 1080p High Definition Widescreen 1.85:1 featuring a brand new 2k scan of the original film elements. I was stunned to see Scream Factory opting to include a new transfer on this disc, which fans of their products should come to expect from them by now. Being 62 years old, the film has a lot of wear and tear, very heavy in many of the stock footage scenes of airplanes flying, and the sequence of natives running from the mantis. There are many sequences, however, that actually look quite clear with manageable grain.
Audio
The audio is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio Mono. Nothing outstanding from a mono track, though the buzzing of the mantis as it flies around attacking people will haunt you after you watch the film.
Special Features
Okay, when I saw the list of extras after I watched the film I was absolutely stunned. I have other Scream Factory titles that I’ve watched and learned that Mystery Science Theatre 3000 did an episode of that, and how I wished I had watched that instead. Low and behold, MST3K not only does an episode of The Deadly Mantis, it’s included on this set! You have the best of both worlds to choose from, a new 2k scan for fans of the film, and watching it with Mike Nelson and his robot pals getting some great laughs. This extra by itself put it over the top in terms of a recommendation from me, so if you’re reading this Scream Factory, keep it up!
Here’s a full list of the extras:
- NEW2K Scan Of The Original Film Elements
- NEWAudio Commentary With Film Historians Tom Weaver And David Schecter
- Mystery Science Theatre 3000Episode “The Deadly Mantis” (02/22/97)
- Theatrical Trailer
- Still Gallery
The Deadly Mantis may not be a great sci-fi classic, but in the genre of creature features it will be sure to entertain fans of said genre. Thanks to a great set of extras by Scream Factory, this is a great set to pick up to try and capture the essence of the genre, and also for some great laughs afterwards.
