Title: Dead Ant
Director: Ron Carlson (All American Christmas Carol, Tom Cool)
Release Date: January 25, 2019
Fear Factor: Comedy with horror elements
Gore: Plenty
You might like this movie if… you like a horror spoof that doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Overall Grade: B

It’s clear from the opening moments of Ron Carlson’s Dead Ant that you’re in for a throwback, political correctness be damned: a scantily clad young woman runs screaming through the desert, pursued by a rhinoceros-sized ant. In an apparent effort to improve her aerodynamics, she whips her top off, and then her shorts. Good move, miss disposable horror movie victim. Now you’re naked ant lunch.

The rest of the movie does not disappoint. Aging glam metal band “Sonic Grave,” on their way to a music festival, stops to purchase some peyote in hopes that it will inspire a new hit song to re-launch their fading brand. A Native American wise man (Michael Horse) delivers a dire warning: while on the influence of the peyote, do not harm anything in the desert or you will pay a heavy price. When drunk-and-tripping bass player Art (Sean Astin) later urinates on an ant, it’s clear that trouble will follow. And does it ever.

Dead Ant is comedy first and foremost, cleverly skewering the excesses of the 80s hair-metal world (the “hit song” penned by the band during their peyote trip, “Side Boob,” would fit easily into a Ratt or Poison album circa 1987) while also poking fun at traditional monster movie conventions. Veteran character actor Tom Arnold steals the show as jaded band manager Danny, from his advice about whether the band should risk their lives to save one of their own (“Don’t save him! He’s just the bass player!”) to the climactic final scene when, missing both of his hands due to ant attacks, he leads the festival crowd in a bloody slow clap to celebrate the band’s victory over the marauding ant hordes.

Not too much depth here, but well-cast and fun to watch.

E.F. LaGrand
The Year in Horror