🦗 The Deadly Mantis
A prehistoric praying mantis thawed from the Arctic ice and heading south
Also known as Mantis, Giant mantis
📺 "Tonight's guest has been in the freezer since before the dinosaurs went out of fashion. Now she's thawed, she's hungry, and she's heading for the city. Don't bother praying; she's better at it."
💀 Facts
- The mantis is freed from the Arctic ice after a volcano erupts in the South Seas
- Its first victims are the crew of a Distant Early Warning radar station in the Arctic
- It flies south from the Arctic to Washington, D.C. and New York
- The finale takes place in the Manhattan Tunnel, where it is killed with gas bombs
- Much of the film is real Air Force footage of radar stations and jets
- It was released on a double bill with the spy film The Girl in the Kremlin
- Star Craig Stevens went on to play television's Peter Gunn the following year
📜 Legend
The Deadly Mantis is Cold War anxiety with antennae. A volcanic eruption in the South Seas shifts the polar ice, and out of it crawls a praying mantis bigger than a bomber, frozen since prehistoric times. It wipes out a radar station on the Distant Early Warning Line, the chain of Arctic stations built to spot Soviet bombers, then flies south over Canada and down the eastern seaboard with the Air Force in pursuit. Craig Stevens plays the colonel who tracks it, William Hopper the palaeontologist who identifies it, and the trail ends in the Manhattan Tunnel, where the creature is finished off with gas bombs. The film leans heavily on real military footage, and its long tour of radar fences and scrambling jets is as much a recruiting film as a monster movie, which is part of its charm.
🎬 The Film
| Title | The Deadly Mantis (1957) |
|---|---|
| Studio | Universal-International |
| Director | Nathan Juran |
| Starring | A giant mechanical model, with no actor inside |
| Makeup | Bud Westmore |
| Released | 1957-05-01 |
🎞️ Premiered in Los Angeles on 1 May 1957 and went out across America later that month on a double bill with the spy film The Girl in the Kremlin. Produced by William Alland, who also made Creature from the Black Lagoon.
🎭 Myth vs Movie
True or false? Make your guess, then click a card (or press r) for the verdict.
The mantis was created by atomic testing.
✘ FALSE
It's a prehistoric survivor, freed from the Arctic ice when a volcanic eruption on the other side of the world shifts the polar cap.
The mantis dies in a New York road tunnel.
✔ TRUE
The finale takes place in the Manhattan Tunnel, where the colonel's team goes in with gas bombs to finish it off.
The Deadly Mantis was shot in colour.
✘ FALSE
It's black and white, which helped the real military stock footage blend in with the new scenes.
Much of The Deadly Mantis is real Air Force footage.
✔ TRUE
Universal padded the story with genuine footage of radar stations, scrambling jets and Arctic bases.
🃏 Stat Card
⚡ Powers
- Flight at the speed of a jet
- Scythe-like forelegs
- Mandibles that bite through aircraft
- Surviving millennia in the ice
🧄 Weaknesses
- Gas bombs
- Jet fighters
- Narrow tunnels
- Being the only one of its kind
Stats power the Monster Mash: terminal-of-terror mash deadly-mantis
🎞️ Legacy
- Mystery Science Theater 3000 riffed on it in 1997
- Giant mantises returned in Son of Godzilla (1967) as the Kamacuras
- Its story came from producer William Alland, who had given Universal Creature from the Black Lagoon
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