Is Them! (1954) Still Worth Watching? Friday Night at TerrorGlow Drive-In

The sun is down, the mosquitoes have reported for duty, and Earl has finally finished changing the letters on the TerrorGlow marquee.

Tonight’s feature:

THEM!

Giant radioactive ants. The New Mexico desert. James Arness. Mysterious deaths. One of the creepiest sounds ever to come out of a 1950s movie.

And — for those of us keeping an eye out for such things — a young Leonard Nimoy.

Now that is a Friday night.

But there’s a real question behind tonight’s trip to TerrorGlow Drive In:

Is Them! (1954) still worth watching more than 70 years later?

The short answer is yes.

If you can accept 1954 special effects and a movie that takes a little time building its mystery, Them! remains one of the easiest classic science-fiction movies to recommend. It’s suspenseful, surprisingly serious, historically important, and considerably better than the words “movie about giant radioactive ants” have any right to suggest.

Earl says grab the popcorn.

We’re going in.

Them! (1954) at a Glance

Released: June 19, 1954
Director: Gordon Douglas
Starring: James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Weldon and James Arness
Running time: About 94 minutes
Genre: Science fiction, horror, creature feature
TerrorGlow recommendation: Absolutely worth the price of admission

Them! was released by Warner Bros. in the summer of 1954. It became Warner Bros.’ highest-grossing film of the year and received an Academy Award nomination for Special Effects. It is also generally credited as the first major “big bug” movie, helping kick off the parade of oversized insects that followed through 1950s science fiction.

So while we remember it as a cult classic today, audiences in 1954 weren’t ignoring this thing.

They showed up for the ants.

What Is Them! About?

No major spoilers here. Earl has been instructed to keep his mouth shut.

The movie opens in the New Mexico desert, where police officers discover a young girl wandering alone.

She is frightened, traumatized and barely responsive.

Nearby, they begin finding things that don’t make much sense: unexplained destruction, mysterious deaths and strange evidence left behind.

And then there is that sound.

If you’ve seen Them!, you know the one.

For quite a while, the movie doesn’t even feel like a monster movie. It plays more like a police mystery. Something is out there, but the movie makes both its characters and its audience work toward the answer.

Eventually, scientists discover the cause.

Years of atomic testing have produced something nobody planned on:

very, very large ants.

And they aren’t content to remain politely in the desert.

Does Them! Still Hold Up Today?

This is really the reason to recommend Them! rather than simply admire it as an interesting old movie.

The story still works.

The effects clearly come from 1954. Nobody is going to mistake the mechanical ants for living creatures captured by a documentary crew.

But Them! understands something that a surprising number of monster movies forget:

Seeing the monster isn’t the only interesting part.

The movie takes time establishing that something is wrong before explaining what it is. The police investigate. Scientists study the evidence. The danger gradually becomes larger.

The first half has the feel of a mystery or detective thriller; later, the story expands into a full-scale effort to prevent the creatures from spreading. Turner Classic Movies similarly describes that unusual shift from detective thriller to large-scale science-fiction adventure as one of the film’s strengths.

And nobody in the movie seems aware that “giant radioactive ants” sounds ridiculous.

They play it straight.

That may be Them!’s secret weapon.

Is Them! Cheesy?

Of course it is.

A little.

There are enormous mechanical ants being operated by men with ropes and levers.

We have to be reasonable here.

But there is a difference between dated special effects and a bad movie.

Them! has the former.

Warner Bros. actually built giant mechanical ant models that could interact with the actors. Two major full-size ant models were constructed, with additional models and enlarged footage used for other scenes. AFI records that the ants were intended to appear roughly nine to twelve feet long.

Director Gordon Douglas later recalled that behind one of those creatures could be a whole crew of men working the controls to make it move.

So yes, sometimes you can see the mechanics of the illusion.

But I rather like that.

There is something wonderful about knowing that somewhere just outside the camera frame a bunch of people are sweating themselves half to death trying to make a gigantic ant menace James Whitmore.

Earl approves of practical effects.

Mostly because he still hasn’t figured out Photoshop.

Trekkie Alert: Leonard Nimoy Is in Them!

All right.

This deserves its own section.

Because I am a Trekkie, and therefore perfectly capable of spotting a familiar Star Trek face in an entirely unrelated movie and becoming much more excited about it than the circumstances warrant.

Leonard Nimoy is in Them!.

Years before the Enterprise, Vulcan logic and Mr. Spock, Nimoy turns up here in a small role as an Army sergeant. AFI lists him in the cast, and TCM also notes Nimoy among the movie’s smaller roles.

It isn’t a major part.

This is not secretly Spock Versus the Giant Ants, although I would absolutely watch that movie.

But there is something genuinely fun about seeing actors before they became permanently attached to the characters we know them for.

In 1954, Leonard Nimoy was simply another working actor appearing in a science-fiction movie about mutant insects.

Twelve years later, Star Trek premiered.

For a Trekkie watching Them! today, his appearance feels like finding a tiny piece of science-fiction history hiding inside another piece of science-fiction history.

Watch for him.

I certainly do.

And That’s Not the Only Familiar Face

James Arness plays FBI agent Robert Graham.

One year after Them! was released, Arness began playing Marshal Matt Dillon on Gunsmoke, a role he would keep for twenty years.

Then there is Edmund Gwenn as Dr. Harold Medford.

You may know him better as Kris Kringle from Miracle on 34th Street.

Which means Them! gives us the rare opportunity to watch Santa Claus explain what gigantic radioactive ants are doing.

The 1950s really were generous.

There is also Fess Parker in a small but memorable role as pilot Alan Crotty.

And that little appearance had an unexpected consequence.

James Arness had reportedly been under consideration for Walt Disney’s upcoming Davy Crockett television series. According to AFI, Disney saw Fess Parker in Them! and offered Parker the role instead.

So, through an extremely strange chain of events, giant ants helped give America Fess Parker’s Davy Crockett.

This is why we watch old movies.

Them! Was Supposed to Be in Color and 3-D

Imagine pulling into the Terrortown Drive-In in 1954, hanging that metal speaker on your window and watching a twelve-foot ant come charging off the screen toward your windshield.

That very nearly happened.

Production reports show that Them! was originally planned in WarnerColor and 3-D. The final movie was released in black and white instead, although the opening title uses red and blue lettering.

The ants had even been designed with color in mind.

Warner Bros. ultimately dropped the color and 3-D presentation.

Maybe that’s unfortunate.

Maybe black and white actually helped.

There is something about the stark desert photography, nighttime scenes and shadows that makes Them! feel more unsettling than brightly colored giant ants might have.

Still…

Three-dimensional ants at a 1954 drive-in?

Earl could have charged an extra quarter for that.

It Almost Took Place in New York

The original story purchased by Warner Bros. wasn’t set primarily in the desert.

According to AFI, Warner Bros. paid writer George Worthing Yates $25,000 for a story involving giant ants in the New York subway tunnels.

The setting was later changed to the New Mexico desert and the Los Angeles tunnel system, reportedly to reduce production costs.

And I think the change helped the movie.

The empty desert gives the opening room to breathe.

There is nowhere for the characters to hide from that strange noise.

Nothing is moving.

Nothing should be out there.

And then something is.

Why Did the 1950s Have So Many Giant-Monster Movies?

Them! arrived at exactly the right moment.

The atomic bomb had changed the world less than a decade earlier. Nuclear technology represented enormous scientific possibility, but nobody could pretend it didn’t also carry terrifying consequences.

Science-fiction movies had a perfect monster factory.

Radiation.

In Them!, atomic testing doesn’t create a supervillain with a complicated plan.

It changes something ordinary.

An ant.

Then it makes that ordinary thing enormous.

That’s what gives the premise a little more weight than you might expect. The ants are the monster, but human beings created the conditions that allowed the monster to exist.

Them! helped establish a formula that would turn up again and again: radiation, mutation and nature growing considerably larger than anyone would prefer.

AFI credits the film as the first major “big bug” movie.

A great many spiders, grasshoppers, scorpions and other oversized nuisances would follow.

Is Them! Actually Scary?

That depends on what scares you.

If you’re expecting modern horror, heavy gore or constant jump scares, no.

Them! isn’t that movie.

Its best scares come from atmosphere and anticipation.

The opening desert sequence is eerie. The child wandering alone is disturbing. The unexplained deaths create tension before the movie reveals what you’re supposed to be afraid of.

And then there is still that sound.

The ants’ strange call has become one of the movie’s most memorable elements.

This is a movie that benefits tremendously from watching it properly:

Lights off.

Phone down.

Room quiet.

Or, preferably, through the windshield of a 1957 Buick while Earl burns the popcorn behind you.

What Hasn’t Aged as Well?

We aren’t going to pretend every old movie becomes flawless simply because enough years pass.

Some of the dialogue is stiff.

The scientific explanations can become lengthy.

The middle has stretches where people spend quite a lot of time discussing the ant problem instead of being attacked by the ant problem.

And yes, the creatures themselves sometimes look mechanical.

If you need fast pacing, modern effects and constant action, Them! probably isn’t going to convert you.

But if you’re willing to meet a 1954 movie on its own terms, those shortcomings don’t sink it.

The suspense, performances and story are strong enough to carry the machinery.

Literally, in the ants’ case.

Where Can You Watch Them! (1954)?

As of summer 2026, Them! is available free with ads on Tubi in the United States, while rental and purchase options are also available through several services. Streaming availability changes, so it is worth checking before settling in for movie night.

And Them! has had a particularly nice bit of attention this summer: a new 4K UHD edition was released on June 16, 2026, sourced from a new 4K scan of the original camera negative.

Seventy-two years later, somebody looked at those enormous mechanical ants and decided:

Yes.

We need to see them more clearly.

Correct decision.

So, Is Them! (1954) Worth Watching Today?

Yes. Definitely.

Not because you should watch it as homework.

Not because every “classic” deserves your time.

And not because we’re grading a 1954 movie on a curve.

Watch Them! because it is still a good movie.

The opening mystery works.

The premise is gloriously 1950s.

The actors take it seriously.

The practical creatures have enormous handmade charm.

There is genuine Atomic Age anxiety underneath the entertainment.

It helped launch an entire cycle of giant-insect movies.

And somewhere along the way you get James Arness, Kris Kringle, Fess Parker and a pre-Star Trek Leonard Nimoy all occupying the same movie.

That’s a pretty good 94 minutes.

Earl’s TerrorGlow Drive-In Verdict

Feature: Them!
Year: 1954
Best watched: After dark on a summer Friday
Scare level: More eerie than terrifying
1950s cheese: Present, but under control
Giant ant satisfaction: High
Trekkie bonus: Leonard Nimoy sighting
Worth watching today: Absolutely

The final reel is over.

The concession stand is closing.

Earl is walking the rows collecting speakers and wondering why there appears to be an unusually large hole behind the projection booth.

If you hear that strange chirping noise on your way out, please don’t bother him.

He has enough to do.

See you next Friday at the TerrorGlow Drive-In.

Sources & Further Reading

American Film Institute Catalog — Them! (1954)

Turner Classic Movies — Them! production history

JustWatch — Them! streaming availability

The Digital Bits — Them! 4K UHD review