Watch the companion episode from our friends at Deep Look to learn how harmless grasshoppers transform into destructive locusts: ruclips.net/video/dt6zCJ2VHok/видео.html
You do know some people dip grasshoppers in chocolate right? I totally dare you to eat a scorpion lollypop on camera! Or try fried tarantula! XD remember the New Guinea highlands where Curu exists? Yeah one of the ways they beat the shortage of protein is to fry tarantulas in oil with a little msg. XDDDDDD
What was so unique about Mothra around this time was that she was a benevolent Earth goddess, not something to be vanquished. So much so that her director wanted Disney to remake her one day.
Well, considering that Godzilla (Gojira) was a result of humans playing around with radiation, and the Smog Monster was a result of us polluting our planet, it's not surprising. The kaiju came to punish us for playing god. We're just too dense to figure it out.
One of the things I've really loved about this show is how Dr. Z illustrates how monster stories are often stand-ins for real-life fears, and how they often combine several different fears in really fascinating ways. It's really made me appreciate how complicated even some of the schlockiest of horror movies can be on that level. It's also a little sad, if not surprising, that quite a bit of those fears were rooted in racism and xenophobia, but that just makes it more important to understand and discuss those stories. Of course, sometimes a fear of bugs is just a fear of bugs! Thank you, Dr. Zarka, for braving the locusts for us.
I highly doubt the giant bug movies were made with racist over tones. Communism maybe, but they were mostly made just because giant radioactive monsters were popular and bugs are an easy thing to make into monsters. Not everything has a deep hidden meaning. Sometimes things are just made for cheap thrills.
I think a lot of times it is simple revisionism. Some one just inserts the issue they want most to talk about and now this art piece, story, movie, whatever, is actually about that. It doesn't matter that others have used the same thing to represent several to dozens of different topics also.
Mhm! So many different things to be scared about in the 1950s, but the change in racial geography is definitely an interesting correlation and maybe one that should be looked into more.
"Dr. Emily Screams"... Wow, I truly never thought I'd see/hear the day. But, it just adds to Dr. Z's human fallibility and relatability; just another reason to love her
I was born at the end of the 50s, and I love the Big Bug films from that decade. By the time I was watching them in the 60s they were already considered pretty funny. I'm particularly fond of the ending of Tarantula! (1955), where the giant spider is killed by jets dropping napalm. In 1955 that scene didn't have the resonances it had aquired in the 60's, after a decade of the Vietnam war. Thank You for bringing so much thoughtful context to a film genre I love!
Though not a typical "big bug" film, Miyazaki's moive Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984) has an interesting take on how big bugs and their roles in the environment of recovering post-apocolytic future Earth and their interactions with the humans that inhabit the Earth.
@@devifoxe i believe in (the English dub of) the film, they just say it is evolution/nature undoing the pollution caused by humans, and doing it pretty much in a way that doesn't give a crap how humans feel about it, though humans are capable of living in harmony with it if thet understand (I've only watched the subtitled version once and never read the manga)
It's worth mentioning that Japanese kaiju movies got in on the monster bug craze too. _Rodan_ , one of the first post-Godzilla kaiju movies, had huge insects called Meganula in its first act (which played out much like _Them_ ), and they reappeared much later in _Godzilla_ _vs_ _Megaguirus_ . Then of course there's obviously _Mothra_ as well.
Even mythology and literary fiction have monstrous bugs: Ancient Greeks and Macedonians would tell of legendary gigantic, man-eating ants living at India, Japan has the shape shifting jorogumo or "temptress spider" and the ōmukade, or monstrous centipedes, the Sumerian poem Enuma Elish shows a race of scorpion-human hybrids, the Hopi people told of the "Spider Goddess", and even Tolkien depicted Ungoliant, Shelob, and the ravenous Giant Spiders in the Middle-Earth metaverse. Let's also include the Spiders of Leng, a race of giant ravenous spiders in the "Dreamlands Cycle" by H.P Lovecraft and Atlach-Nacha, a Great Old One that is a giant spider featured in the Cthulhu Mythos.
Can we have something on mind control worms? They seem to pop up everywhere in fiction… Ceti Eels from Star Trek, Yeerks from Animorphs, Gua’uld from Stargate, Geonosian worms from Star Wars: The Clone Wars, etc.
@@camblycreeper7999 there reproduction is done via planting a grub in your eye and having it take over your brain until your body transforms. So I would say it counts
Special effects like what we have now weren't like in the movies of the '40s. Yet the filmmakers in that era used their ingenuity to make their practical effects improved as the years go by.
I watched "Them!" recently and the effects actually kinda hold up. While all the Bert I Gordon classics were using composite shots and military stock footage (and in some cases, literally shots of bugs crawling on postcards of buildings), "Them!" had the actors interacting with disturbingly real gigantic puppets that they actually lit on fire on stage in the climax.
I would love to see an episode about the "Hive Mind" diving into the history and horror of things that think together, like the Geth from Mass Effect, or the insect aliens from Ender's Game. And of course movies and stories about this too!!
Idk that Ender's Game really is "horror" in any major way. The aliens in that story were just too alien to understand human desires until it was too late and Visa versa. Definitely be interested to see where the idea of a hive mind came from though.
The fact that those giant insects are anatomically impossible does not prevent me from enjoying those movies. After all, breathing fire is not something an animal should be capable of, and I still very much enjoy dragon stories.
@@austintrousdale2397 As the environment on other planets would by definition be radically different from ours any insects that evolved there would be radically different to ours. What that difference was is impossible to say with any certainty. The idea we might not even identify them as insects at first though is highly probable.
I've grown far less afraid of bugs in recent years, but it definitely helped me to realize that bugs have a size restraint put on them by both gravity and oxygen levels. The biggest bugs were in the carboniferous era (and were still smaller than most in these movies) but that was because there was more oxygen. But even in an ideal oxygenated environment, their exoskeletons would collapse in on themselves if made magically larger bc of the square-cubed law. IMO, if giant bugs ever evolved they'd likely have changed considerably until they were more similar to vertebrates.
"Them!" had both the message of watching the skies, in reference to citizens asked to watch for the approach of enemy bombers as well as the more subtle message about the hidden "red menace" beneath our streets (Most "Pogonomyrmex spp." are red). A lot of these movies were my inspiration to become an entomologist.
Hey, that's awesome! Do you have a focus on any species, or particular genus, or overall type of species (eg. all mygalomorph spiders or all ants, ect)? Or do you study a bit of everything? Entomology seems so fascinating! Is it as engrossing as it seems? Sorry for all the questions. I just recently revived my interest in insects and arthropods (now that I have more leisure time) and can't help but take the opportunity to (try to) sate my curiosity! Lol
@@dorabrooks76 My focus is acarology, the study of ticks and mites. Mostly ticks but I'm an artist when it comes to clearing mites for microscope slides.
@@Quake210 That's really cool! I probably should have guessed ticks were special to you because of your pfp. lol My niece and I like to spend time observing different critters- she's especially fond of wood bugs (isopods). She just got a microscope this morning and I'm looking forward to preparing slides with her and finding life in (to her) unexpected places. I'm pretty rusty, so I'm definitely not going to be an artist preparing slides, that's for sure! 😆 Thanks for answering my overzealous comment. All the best to you and your tiny friends!
We need an Iron Giant for insects! I am hoping to add some Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches to our family menagerie next year, I find so many insects to be quite adorable
I am ok with singular insects...most of the time. But it's the swarms that actually creep me out 😫😫 I couldn't even watch the scarab beetle scenes in The Mummy without getting itchy lol
Something about multitudes of clawed legs on small creatures just makes humans go apeshit after Spider conditioned them into hating anything spider shaped. And don't get me started on the Snakes
Can you do a video entitled ‘the fear of the ape’ where you explain the origins, psychology and deep seated fears of fictional folklore, fictional sci-fi scenarios, and urban legends concerning gorillas, chimps, monkeys, sasquatches, yetis, King Kong, gigantopithecus, and so on and why we seem to have an aversion to our primate kin folk?
@@lyndsaybrown8471 apes in general are terrifying. A little bastard a third of your size is fully able to rips out chunks of your flesh. And that's the small ones, crossing a gorilla or orangutan is much worse
This video is uploaded on my birthday and what a coincidence I'm a fan of the 1950s atomic age Science Fiction. I never made the connection to big bugs and the masses. Then again, it makes sense because the herd is still a problem even today.
My favorite part about giant bugs is that they're just physically impossible due to how bugs function, both in their respiratory system and their skeletal system.
Having recently watched THEM, I can tell you it still holds as a very scary film with some really good actors including several child actors who are VERY believable in their roles.
Bugs have also been used in Mythology around the World for thousands of years, there have even been mythological insect hybrids like the Thriae(Half-Human Upper Body, Half-Bee Lower Body), and the Myrmecoleon(Half-Lion Front Body, Half-Ant Rear Body), and they already covered the Jorogumo.
The fantasy story "The Food Of The Gods" had a similar plot, but instead of a science-fiction story that dealt with ants becoming mutated into giant, super-smart ants, the Food Of The Gods had a less sci-fi premise. The story had a supernatural origin, not about exposure to atomic energy and chemical waste, but an enigmatic, and mysterious white slime that oozed out of the ground for an as yet unrevealed reason. This was not an artificial or natural phenomenon. It was a magical one, with various animals, not just insects, eating the white goo. It didn't make them become super-intelligent, but it did transform them into giant animals, and they became aggressive, attacking all other living creatures smaller than them. The riddle in this story is not only the question about what the milky goop really was, the so-called "Food Of The Gods" so-to-speak, but also why it made whatever animals that were exposed to it suddenly turn into giant monsters that attacked human beings. If you think that giant ants are scary, imagine giant rats, or giant cats, or giant dogs. 🤯
@@brianreddeman951 I've read the book before. Yeah I know that the story in the novel is very different from the movie version. But I was just referring to the film version only because it was in comparison to the movie "Them!"
Discovered this channel a few days ago and have been binge-watching them! Thanks Dr. Z and the team at PBS: Some recommendations: since you've been doing a lot of videos on movie monsters, how about arguably the most thematically-dense movie monster of all time, the Xenomorph from the Alien franchise. Also as a New Zealander, would be great to see the Taniwha covered. Other neat ones would be Tengu; Mokele-Mbebme; drowning river monsters (like Greek water nymphs, Slavic Rusalka/Vodvanoy, Japanese Kappa); Modern post-Roswell alien myths (Greys, Nords, Reptilians etc).
"It's just because people historically have had a fear of bugs, right?" *Dr. Z:* "..." _"It's because people historically have had a fear of bugs, right?"_ The real giant monster bug was systemic racism, all along.
I would love to see another episode on this delving a bit more into the giant spider trope. I think there's a whole separate but similar narrative to them that could be delved into, including old folklore stories on spiders and such.
She forgot Starship Troopers, with their bug armies, able to reach other planets and infest them! Also, the army, in this case the aforementioned Troopers, were at the front lines, attempting to force them(the bug armies) back where they BELONGED!
You should do a video on “not deer”. You know, like when you’re driving down an old dirt road and see a deer, but then you look at it for a second too long, and then realize it’s not a deer
2:21 : "things so horrible... so terrifying... so hideous... there is no word to describe... THEM" Maybe no single word, but "giant ants" is descriptive enough
I once had to do a project with locusts at uni, keeping them and looking at the genetics behind the swarming effect! Dr. Z, we had the exact same nerves and frightened reaction when first holding them, but if you spend some time with these funky creatures they really will grow on you!
Them! My favorite 50s SciFi movie. Of course, it is physically impossible for arthropods to reach gigantic size. Not only would they have difficulty breathing, their exoskeletons wouldn’t be able to support their weight.
Now I want to see a film about giant cicadas but their brood cycles are in the thousands or millions of years. Just watching one of them climb up onto a skyscraper and shed its exoskeleton and fly away would be terrifying enough, but then if that shed exoskeleton falls and crushes cars below, plus the sheer decibel level of their mating calls when increased to this new size, could probably shatter glass, at least in a horror movie context.
"Us and THEM!" (With apologies to Pink Floyd) "THEM!" started off like a standard early 1950s crime drama which gradually morphed into a top-notch Sci-Fi thriller. One of the first "big bugs" that I remember seeing was a big spider in a film was "Tarzan's Desert Mystery" (1943). I really liked that corny old B/W Sci-Fi movie, "Earth Vs. The Spider" -- overaged "teens," hot rods, Rock N Roll, a cool science teacher, and a jumbo spider -- just the ticket! "Mimic" was a pretty good flick too.
Funny story about my native country's obsession with translation of movie titles. "Them!" in Swedish is called "Spindlarna" which means...the Spiders...in a movie about ants.
The eponymous insect of _The Gold Bug_ does bite someone, but it's unclear if that does anything other than hurt. Legrand was already eccentric, possibly bipolar, and it's his servant who thinks he's going crazy. It's the story of a search for pirate treasure. The treasure hunters are figuratively bitten by the gold-bug.
There also may have been a special-effect driven interest in big bug movies: building model cities that bugs could rampage through and the ability to film them up close would have been a relatively new style of film, but also resource-friendly since they could use a real bug and a tiny set. So the novelty of it could have coincided with the ease of making the films and the social interest in swarm narratives.
I remember see "Them!" one day on my house and at the part where the child scream: Them! I said: Them who? C'mon isn't so difficult... Oh you got to be kidding, they're just giant ants! You could say that from the beginning, girl!
While the Buzfeed Unsolved's true crime and supernatural are no longer exist, i found this channel and i'm so happy i found it, please keep doing the great work, love the explanation and the scientific approach of the research along the way, great channel👍
Long time watcher first time comment. Just wanted to say that your show is one I always look forward to when it pop's into my feed. Keep up the great episodes. Thanks a bunch
You overlooked the "other" monster locust movie - Exorcist II. A large chunk of the plot concerns "the good locust" who can calm the madness which "possesses" and transforms the good grasshopper into the evil locust.
In THE GOLD BUG, Legrand is neither bitten nor insane. His servant Jupiter thinks he might have been bitten and suspects that he's going insane. He wasn't and he isn't.
Sorry to be pedantic but poisonous and venomous mean slightly different things. Poison is toxic when consumed, and venom has a delivery method (like a bite or a sting). Poisonous was used a few times in this video when venomous was the appropriate term.
I find the take on science and atomic energy in these films really interesting. Most of these aren't inherently monsters, but have been made into monsters through human action and questionable choices. I see a Distrust of Government, Concern over Atomic Radiation (not unwarranted), Dangers of Irresponsible Science, potential strength of "Good Science", and a concern for ethics and management of scientific experiments. IIRC, the '50s and '60s is when we actually started regulating animal and human research on a larger scale. You could argue that many of these films play into that mindset "Science can be for good or evil, and can inadvertantly lead to problems; it needs to be warched and regulated for everyone's safety." It's all very interesting, actually
Great video overall, I love Monstrum! Just wanted to throw this in on the topic of racism in comparing groups of people to invasive insects. The Entomological Society of America is no longer using the name "gypsy" moth. Lymantria is their proper name and for now that's what many people are using instead. I'd rather not perpetuate the stereotype and I'd also like to further the now scientific accuracy in common names :)
The "steel cockroaches" and giant scorpions from the B-movie "Damnation Alley" freaked me out as a kid, but my love of post-apocalyptic movies was born.
So I know spiders aren't insects, but, a childhood horror story for you: when I was 6 or 7, I was walking through my grandparents' garden. I was just passing the 6ft tall sunflowers, just happened to look to my right, and came nose to... whatever spiders have, a few inches away, from a HUGE black and yellow spider almost the size of my face. It was just a garden spider, but to this day I have never screamed that loud or ran that hard in my life
Interesting that giant bug movies are still being made today and have renewed resonance because of global heating. The real horror story, of course, is the rapid disappearance of insects in recent decades. I wonder if horror media has tackled this yet.
Watch the companion episode from our friends at Deep Look to learn how harmless grasshoppers transform into destructive locusts: ruclips.net/video/dt6zCJ2VHok/видео.html
In secects need a lot oxygen to body size
Bugs are sentient beings but all lice has stay stay in balance and fighting for life in many ways is what gives meaning to life
Fire ants control worse pest fire ants control locust
I was expecting more would be discussed about the giant spiders as they seem to be a subgenre of their own.
You do know some people dip grasshoppers in chocolate right? I totally dare you to eat a scorpion lollypop on camera! Or try fried tarantula! XD remember the New Guinea highlands where Curu exists? Yeah one of the ways they beat the shortage of protein is to fry tarantulas in oil with a little msg. XDDDDDD
Thanks for joining us, Dr. Z! Now we're off to watch some Big Bug films....
Hola
What was so unique about Mothra around this time was that she was a benevolent Earth goddess, not something to be vanquished. So much so that her director wanted Disney to remake her one day.
She was made in Japan, though. And also, feminist icon Mothra's star-power cannot be denied.
Shame she’s stuck in Warner Bros then… I think that’s who have the monster verse anyway.
With how Disney is now, I don't want that.
Well, considering that Godzilla (Gojira) was a result of humans playing around with radiation, and the Smog Monster was a result of us polluting our planet, it's not surprising. The kaiju came to punish us for playing god. We're just too dense to figure it out.
One of the things I've really loved about this show is how Dr. Z illustrates how monster stories are often stand-ins for real-life fears, and how they often combine several different fears in really fascinating ways. It's really made me appreciate how complicated even some of the schlockiest of horror movies can be on that level.
It's also a little sad, if not surprising, that quite a bit of those fears were rooted in racism and xenophobia, but that just makes it more important to understand and discuss those stories.
Of course, sometimes a fear of bugs is just a fear of bugs! Thank you, Dr. Zarka, for braving the locusts for us.
I highly doubt the giant bug movies were made with racist over tones. Communism maybe, but they were mostly made just because giant radioactive monsters were popular and bugs are an easy thing to make into monsters.
Not everything has a deep hidden meaning. Sometimes things are just made for cheap thrills.
So you didn't watch the video, then?
I think a lot of times it is simple revisionism. Some one just inserts the issue they want most to talk about and now this art piece, story, movie, whatever, is actually about that. It doesn't matter that others have used the same thing to represent several to dozens of different topics also.
Mhm! So many different things to be scared about in the 1950s, but the change in racial geography is definitely an interesting correlation and maybe one that should be looked into more.
Absolutely, one of the most popular tools for dehumanization is comparing people to bugs or pests in order to justify genocide...
"Dr. Emily Screams"... Wow, I truly never thought I'd see/hear the day. But, it just adds to Dr. Z's human fallibility and relatability; just another reason to love her
Very adorable squeaks they were too!
I was born at the end of the 50s, and I love the Big Bug films from that decade. By the time I was watching them in the 60s they were already considered pretty funny. I'm particularly fond of the ending of Tarantula! (1955), where the giant spider is killed by jets dropping napalm. In 1955 that scene didn't have the resonances it had aquired in the 60's, after a decade of the Vietnam war. Thank You for bringing so much thoughtful context to a film genre I love!
Clint Eastwood is piloting that plane.
@@Bethelaine1 Thank You, I didn't know that! Makes the scene even better...
@@Bethelaine1 I think that's his first film.
Though not a typical "big bug" film, Miyazaki's moive Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind (1984) has an interesting take on how big bugs and their roles in the environment of recovering post-apocolytic future Earth and their interactions with the humans that inhabit the Earth.
That movie's so good!
Ya ghibli animation r something
Ah yes, Nausicaa was something. I need to rewatch it like 3 times just to get into the movie plot.
If I remember correct,
The humans of the past have bioengineer them to clean/terraform the earth after the collapse of ecosystem because of wars
@@devifoxe i believe in (the English dub of) the film, they just say it is evolution/nature undoing the pollution caused by humans, and doing it pretty much in a way that doesn't give a crap how humans feel about it, though humans are capable of living in harmony with it if thet understand (I've only watched the subtitled version once and never read the manga)
It's worth mentioning that Japanese kaiju movies got in on the monster bug craze too. _Rodan_ , one of the first post-Godzilla kaiju movies, had huge insects called Meganula in its first act (which played out much like _Them_ ), and they reappeared much later in _Godzilla_ _vs_ _Megaguirus_ . Then of course there's obviously _Mothra_ as well.
The Ultraman series uses Giant Bug as a go-to concept for kaiju to this day!
eyy don't forget Kamacuras and Kumonga
@@loneber8773 and megalon
Even mythology and literary fiction have monstrous bugs: Ancient Greeks and Macedonians would tell of legendary gigantic, man-eating ants living at India, Japan has the shape shifting jorogumo or "temptress spider" and the ōmukade, or monstrous centipedes, the Sumerian poem Enuma Elish shows a race of scorpion-human hybrids, the Hopi people told of the "Spider Goddess", and even Tolkien depicted Ungoliant, Shelob, and the ravenous Giant Spiders in the Middle-Earth metaverse. Let's also include the Spiders of Leng, a race of giant ravenous spiders in the "Dreamlands Cycle" by H.P Lovecraft and Atlach-Nacha, a Great Old One that is a giant spider featured in the Cthulhu Mythos.
We've covered the Jorōgumo. Check it out! ruclips.net/video/tCsHkU-TH3Y/видео.html
"scorpion-human hybrids" - I've seen that movie.
@@johannageisel5390 aqrabuamelu?
@@tijanamilenkovic9442 No, I was thinking of Scorpion King. 😂
Can we have something on mind control worms? They seem to pop up everywhere in fiction… Ceti Eels from Star Trek, Yeerks from Animorphs, Gua’uld from Stargate, Geonosian worms from Star Wars: The Clone Wars, etc.
Illithids from D&D (Better known as Mind Flayer) Though, they might not count because they are more than mind control and more than worms.
@@camblycreeper7999 there reproduction is done via planting a grub in your eye and having it take over your brain until your body transforms. So I would say it counts
The worms from Adventure Time too
"The only good bug is a dead bug!"
-Some homeless guy, Buenos Aires.
That wasn’t a homeless guy that was a guy whose home was destroyed by the bugs
I gotta say, I was surprised that Starship Troopers wasn't mentioned. Though I guess she was focusing on giant Earth insects.
I'M DOING MY PART
@@trevorhunt9547 Technically I guess it's not "giant" if it's regular sized for its species.
@@thedragondemands5186 his home was destroyed... so he was homeless. That's the joke.
Special effects like what we have now weren't like in the movies of the '40s. Yet the filmmakers in that era used their ingenuity to make their practical effects improved as the years go by.
I watched "Them!" recently and the effects actually kinda hold up. While all the Bert I Gordon classics were using composite shots and military stock footage (and in some cases, literally shots of bugs crawling on postcards of buildings), "Them!" had the actors interacting with disturbingly real gigantic puppets that they actually lit on fire on stage in the climax.
I would love to see an episode about the "Hive Mind" diving into the history and horror of things that think together, like the Geth from Mass Effect, or the insect aliens from Ender's Game. And of course movies and stories about this too!!
Idk that Ender's Game really is "horror" in any major way. The aliens in that story were just too alien to understand human desires until it was too late and Visa versa.
Definitely be interested to see where the idea of a hive mind came from though.
The fact that those giant insects are anatomically impossible does not prevent me from enjoying those movies. After all, breathing fire is not something an animal should be capable of, and I still very much enjoy dragon stories.
You hear of the Carboniferous era
@@nathanalvarado289 Sure, but even those insects were nowhere near the size of the monsters in these movies.
Something akin to the bombardier beetle could probably create fire by mixing the chemicals as they're expelled.
Anatomically impossible given the Earth’s atmosphere at present, but on other planets… 🤔😵💫👾😁
@@austintrousdale2397 As the environment on other planets would by definition be radically different from ours any insects that evolved there would be radically different to ours. What that difference was is impossible to say with any certainty. The idea we might not even identify them as insects at first though is highly probable.
This was so interesting. I was surprised that prehistoric insects didn’t influence these movies or fear.
I've grown far less afraid of bugs in recent years, but it definitely helped me to realize that bugs have a size restraint put on them by both gravity and oxygen levels. The biggest bugs were in the carboniferous era (and were still smaller than most in these movies) but that was because there was more oxygen. But even in an ideal oxygenated environment, their exoskeletons would collapse in on themselves if made magically larger bc of the square-cubed law. IMO, if giant bugs ever evolved they'd likely have changed considerably until they were more similar to vertebrates.
USA is Giant Ants
Japan is Gojira.
Why the difference? But both reveal a underlying fear of the Atom bomb
Japan: frequent Tsunamis caused by earthquakes, hence monster coming ashore;
US: fear of hive mind (lack of personal freedom in the soviet system)
"Them!" had both the message of watching the skies, in reference to citizens asked to watch for the approach of enemy bombers as well as the more subtle message about the hidden "red menace" beneath our streets (Most "Pogonomyrmex spp." are red). A lot of these movies were my inspiration to become an entomologist.
Hey, that's awesome! Do you have a focus on any species, or particular genus, or overall type of species (eg. all mygalomorph spiders or all ants, ect)? Or do you study a bit of everything? Entomology seems so fascinating! Is it as engrossing as it seems?
Sorry for all the questions. I just recently revived my interest in insects and arthropods (now that I have more leisure time) and can't help but take the opportunity to (try to) sate my curiosity! Lol
@@dorabrooks76 My focus is acarology, the study of ticks and mites. Mostly ticks but I'm an artist when it comes to clearing mites for microscope slides.
@@Quake210 That's really cool! I probably should have guessed ticks were special to you because of your pfp. lol My niece and I like to spend time observing different critters- she's especially fond of wood bugs (isopods). She just got a microscope this morning and I'm looking forward to preparing slides with her and finding life in (to her) unexpected places. I'm pretty rusty, so I'm definitely not going to be an artist preparing slides, that's for sure! 😆
Thanks for answering my overzealous comment. All the best to you and your tiny friends!
I wonder if we could make "Nuke Guilt" a recognized genre? Or at least a trope.
Sounds more like a SuperTrope of several genres.
Absolutely!
The big bug monsters don't even get more loved.
l really love the idea of big monster bugs and the history behind them it was certainly interesting.
We're back on the witch finder phase. Unfortunately it's on Twitter.
We need an Iron Giant for insects! I am hoping to add some Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches to our family menagerie next year, I find so many insects to be quite adorable
People who use lower case L in place of upper case I are smooth brained losers
I really like how in the intro, the dragon's pupil gets smaller when you hold the light up to it. That's some really cool attention to detail.
Meanwhile Antman has made most of us WANT a doggo-sized ant for a pet AND made us cry over another ant. RIP Antony
I am ok with singular insects...most of the time. But it's the swarms that actually creep me out 😫😫 I couldn't even watch the scarab beetle scenes in The Mummy without getting itchy lol
When those bugs started crawling under their skin was what massively creeped me out as a kid!
Dr. Z 'I wonder who would consider locus scary enough for horror movies'
Also Dr. Z *yells in fear while holding a locus*
Something about multitudes of clawed legs on small creatures just makes humans go apeshit after Spider conditioned them into hating anything spider shaped. And don't get me started on the Snakes
Can you do a video entitled ‘the fear of the ape’ where you explain the origins, psychology and deep seated fears of fictional folklore, fictional sci-fi scenarios, and urban legends concerning gorillas, chimps, monkeys, sasquatches, yetis, King Kong, gigantopithecus, and so on and why we seem to have an aversion to our primate kin folk?
Also one of these about clowns would be interesting as well
Not a bad idea, although Monstrum/Storied did an episode on the Yeti last year. 💚👣
Good idea. Although, chimps are actually terrifying...
@@lyndsaybrown8471 apes in general are terrifying. A little bastard a third of your size is fully able to rips out chunks of your flesh. And that's the small ones, crossing a gorilla or orangutan is much worse
This video is uploaded on my birthday and what a coincidence I'm a fan of the 1950s atomic age Science Fiction. I never made the connection to big bugs and the masses. Then again, it makes sense because the herd is still a problem even today.
Dr Z, I applaud your bravery. I can't even touch a picture of an arthropod in a book lol
Whenever I see one I change the page quickly.
My favorite part about giant bugs is that they're just physically impossible due to how bugs function, both in their respiratory system and their skeletal system.
Having recently watched THEM, I can tell you it still holds as a very scary film with some really good actors including several child actors who are VERY believable in their roles.
Bugs have also been used in Mythology around the World for thousands of years, there have even been mythological insect hybrids like the Thriae(Half-Human Upper Body, Half-Bee Lower Body), and the Myrmecoleon(Half-Lion Front Body, Half-Ant Rear Body), and they already covered the Jorogumo.
Please do a video on beings described as powerful and terrifying by ancient civilizations, drawing both fear and reverence in equal measure: Angels.
The fantasy story "The Food Of The Gods" had a similar plot, but instead of a science-fiction story that dealt with ants becoming mutated into giant, super-smart ants, the Food Of The Gods had a less sci-fi premise. The story had a supernatural origin, not about exposure to atomic energy and chemical waste, but an enigmatic, and mysterious white slime that oozed out of the ground for an as yet unrevealed reason. This was not an artificial or natural phenomenon. It was a magical one, with various animals, not just insects, eating the white goo. It didn't make them become super-intelligent, but it did transform them into giant animals, and they became aggressive, attacking all other living creatures smaller than them. The riddle in this story is not only the question about what the milky goop really was, the so-called "Food Of The Gods" so-to-speak, but also why it made whatever animals that were exposed to it suddenly turn into giant monsters that attacked human beings. If you think that giant ants are scary, imagine giant rats, or giant cats, or giant dogs. 🤯
Read the original story; it is vastly different.
My uncle Ernie feed white slime to his dog and he doesn’t grow any bigger.
@@dreddpiratebromando5953 The white slime has to come out of the ground, not your uncle ya mook. 🙄😒
@@brianreddeman951 I've read the book before. Yeah I know that the story in the novel is very different from the movie version. But I was just referring to the film version only because it was in comparison to the movie "Them!"
@@incubustimelord5947 Ah got it. I think the director really loved that story. I think he something called "Village of the Giants"
Them! is (and always will be) one of my favorite monster movies.
Discovered this channel a few days ago and have been binge-watching them! Thanks Dr. Z and the team at PBS:
Some recommendations: since you've been doing a lot of videos on movie monsters, how about arguably the most thematically-dense movie monster of all time, the Xenomorph from the Alien franchise.
Also as a New Zealander, would be great to see the Taniwha covered.
Other neat ones would be Tengu; Mokele-Mbebme; drowning river monsters (like Greek water nymphs, Slavic Rusalka/Vodvanoy, Japanese Kappa); Modern post-Roswell alien myths (Greys, Nords, Reptilians etc).
"It's just because people historically have had a fear of bugs, right?"
*Dr. Z:* "..."
_"It's because people historically have had a fear of bugs, right?"_
The real giant monster bug was systemic racism, all along.
To be honest that point seemed like a stretch, the other motivations she suggested made more sense in my opinion.
@@mds_main Try watching the movies she talked about, the subtext is there.
@@dandylionsloth446 Can you expand on that please? Just want to learn more.
Within the span of 5 years I witnessed a Cricket, Grasshopper & Locust swarm my old town for days.
As someone who was NOT a farmer, fun stuff.
I would love to see another episode on this delving a bit more into the giant spider trope. I think there's a whole separate but similar narrative to them that could be delved into, including old folklore stories on spiders and such.
She forgot Starship Troopers, with their bug armies, able to reach other planets and infest them! Also, the army, in this case the aforementioned Troopers, were at the front lines, attempting to force them(the bug armies) back where they BELONGED!
You should do a video on “not deer”. You know, like when you’re driving down an old dirt road and see a deer, but then you look at it for a second too long, and then realize it’s not a deer
2:21 : "things so horrible... so terrifying... so hideous... there is no word to describe... THEM"
Maybe no single word, but "giant ants" is descriptive enough
My dad and I used to watch a lot of old monster movies, we loved Them! We also had a soft spot for The Black Scorpion.
the movie Them is perhaps one of my favorite movies from that era.
One of my favorite videos yet. I am a huge bug fanatic.
Do you think you can talk about the twisted deities from the Cthulhu mythos mythos?
I... Like... Big bugs and I cannot lie
8-Legged Freaks? man I haven't watched that movie as a kid. Thanks for reminding me!
I have THEM! on Blu-Ray. One of my favorite B rated films.
I do too. I love it.
I also get the feeling giant insect movie where made because getting footage of the animal in question was relativly cheap
God, thanks for reminding me why this is the best show on RUclips. Y'all seriously deserve more views
Sweet. THEM is my favorite monster movie ever. I am disproportionately stoked that you mentioned it! (I am a dork)
For the Japanese, bugs were turned into super heroes. Case on point, KAMEN RIDER which is based on locust/grasshoppers.
I once had to do a project with locusts at uni, keeping them and looking at the genetics behind the swarming effect! Dr. Z, we had the exact same nerves and frightened reaction when first holding them, but if you spend some time with these funky creatures they really will grow on you!
Them! My favorite 50s SciFi movie. Of course, it is physically impossible for arthropods to reach gigantic size. Not only would they have difficulty breathing, their exoskeletons wouldn’t be able to support their weight.
Now I want to see a film about giant cicadas but their brood cycles are in the thousands or millions of years.
Just watching one of them climb up onto a skyscraper and shed its exoskeleton and fly away would be terrifying enough, but then if that shed exoskeleton falls and crushes cars below, plus the sheer decibel level of their mating calls when increased to this new size, could probably shatter glass, at least in a horror movie context.
00:03 Those first few seconds of the insect faces just give expressions that remind me of "😱" Mostly the ant one
Narrator: [...] there's no way of describing THEM!
They're giant ants... They're ants, but larger...
"The Gold Bug" is one of Poe's non-horror stories involving a secret code and a pirate treasure. You can do better than that, Dr. Z.
"Us and THEM!" (With apologies to Pink Floyd) "THEM!" started off like a standard early 1950s crime drama which gradually morphed into a top-notch Sci-Fi thriller. One of the first "big bugs" that I remember seeing was a big spider in a film was "Tarzan's Desert Mystery" (1943). I really liked that corny old B/W Sci-Fi movie, "Earth Vs. The Spider" -- overaged "teens," hot rods, Rock N Roll, a cool science teacher, and a jumbo spider -- just the ticket! "Mimic" was a pretty good flick too.
The picture of that spider made me scream so loud that it was heard through out the whole house!🙀
Funny story about my native country's obsession with translation of movie titles. "Them!" in Swedish is called "Spindlarna" which means...the Spiders...in a movie about ants.
The eponymous insect of _The Gold Bug_ does bite someone, but it's unclear if that does anything other than hurt. Legrand was already eccentric, possibly bipolar, and it's his servant who thinks he's going crazy. It's the story of a search for pirate treasure. The treasure hunters are figuratively bitten by the gold-bug.
About being in the lab w/the grasshopper, I thought she was going to say, - So I went to a lab to learn about locusts, &... ended up eating one 🤣
Absolutely adored the film "Love and Monsters" (2020) which feels like a modern take on the 'giant bug' trope.
How appropriate this is just before Thanksgiving, just in time for MST3K Turkey Day :) (a show which featured most these films, lol)
There also may have been a special-effect driven interest in big bug movies: building model cities that bugs could rampage through and the ability to film them up close would have been a relatively new style of film, but also resource-friendly since they could use a real bug and a tiny set. So the novelty of it could have coincided with the ease of making the films and the social interest in swarm narratives.
Loved it! Also gave me an idea for another "monster" to feature : (human) "crowds"...
"Them" is one of the movies that should be remade. Still one of my favorites!
I remember see "Them!" one day on my house and at the part where the child scream: Them! I said: Them who? C'mon isn't so difficult... Oh you got to be kidding, they're just giant ants! You could say that from the beginning, girl!
You should do a sequel video about giant bugs that talks about Star Ship Troopers and Ender's Games, as well as other similar stories.
While the Buzfeed Unsolved's true crime and supernatural are no longer exist, i found this channel and i'm so happy i found it, please keep doing the great work, love the explanation and the scientific approach of the research along the way, great channel👍
My son and I love your show. How about an episode about the origin of the term NIGHTMARE?
I just had an idea for a short story thanks to this video. Thanks, Dr. Zarka!
Long time watcher first time comment. Just wanted to say that your show is one I always look forward to when it pop's into my feed. Keep up the great episodes. Thanks a bunch
Spiders and Scorpions. Millipedes and Centipedes. These are not bugs, let alone insects. Maybe this should be titled the "Giant Arthropods" instead?
You overlooked the "other" monster locust movie - Exorcist II.
A large chunk of the plot concerns "the good locust" who can calm the madness which "possesses" and transforms the good grasshopper into the evil locust.
Ermm... yeah this is the first video of Monstrum ever that I'm going to have to miss. Didn't think my entomophobia was this bad...
0:05 Spiders are NOT Insects!
Dr Z is intelligent, cute, and creepy... I love her 😍 Thanks for all the fun content!
In THE GOLD BUG, Legrand is neither bitten nor insane.
His servant Jupiter thinks he might have been bitten and suspects that he's going insane.
He wasn't and he isn't.
I will never trade this channel for any other channel
Holy crap! I now know the name of that old film I saw when I was like 4 camping with my aunt (Them!)
In my opinion, Big Ass Spider is THE most entertaining option in the genre
Sorry to be pedantic but poisonous and venomous mean slightly different things. Poison is toxic when consumed, and venom has a delivery method (like a bite or a sting). Poisonous was used a few times in this video when venomous was the appropriate term.
If it gets bitten and you die that's either Voodoo (Rather; The Sympathetic magic bastardised as being part of Voodoo) or it's a weird coincidence
All venomous things are poisonous; just not vice versa.
@@marlonmoncrieffe0728 This is incorrect, many venoms need to enter the bloodstream to be effective and are harmless when ingested.
I find the take on science and atomic energy in these films really interesting. Most of these aren't inherently monsters, but have been made into monsters through human action and questionable choices.
I see a Distrust of Government, Concern over Atomic Radiation (not unwarranted), Dangers of Irresponsible Science, potential strength of "Good Science", and a concern for ethics and management of scientific experiments. IIRC, the '50s and '60s is when we actually started regulating animal and human research on a larger scale. You could argue that many of these films play into that mindset "Science can be for good or evil, and can inadvertantly lead to problems; it needs to be warched and regulated for everyone's safety." It's all very interesting, actually
Might not be a horror but Starship troopers is definitely my favourite bug movie
Hey! Good on you for overcoming your fears to touch and hold them! That's a great accomplishment!
Just here to say how much I love this show!
Thank you for this fine episode of creepy crawlies
Great video overall, I love Monstrum! Just wanted to throw this in on the topic of racism in comparing groups of people to invasive insects. The Entomological Society of America is no longer using the name "gypsy" moth. Lymantria is their proper name and for now that's what many people are using instead. I'd rather not perpetuate the stereotype and I'd also like to further the now scientific accuracy in common names :)
Ben Shapiro’s next episode: “SonowtheLefthasactuallycancelledaninsect.Youheardthatright,aninsect…”
Ahhhh I LOVE bugs so this is right up my alley.
this is the first episode I'm legitimately afraid of D:
Please, do something about the books in the fireplace! Not only isn't it a place to store books, the way they are stored is just wrong.
Megalomorpha?
Also I loved giant bug films as a little kid! (I used to be all about bugs and spiders when I was little).
I for one welcome our new monstrum overlords!
Brian Aldiss's Hothouse is a great example of this type of book
Fascinating! I wasn’t aware of the sociopolitical background of these movies.
The "steel cockroaches" and giant scorpions from the B-movie "Damnation Alley" freaked me out as a kid, but my love of post-apocalyptic movies was born.
Hilariously, I just ran a one-shot tabletop game with giant insects and the like.
So I know spiders aren't insects, but, a childhood horror story for you: when I was 6 or 7, I was walking through my grandparents' garden. I was just passing the 6ft tall sunflowers, just happened to look to my right, and came nose to... whatever spiders have, a few inches away, from a HUGE black and yellow spider almost the size of my face. It was just a garden spider, but to this day I have never screamed that loud or ran that hard in my life
I love the fact that the fireplace is not attached to the wall
Interesting that giant bug movies are still being made today and have renewed resonance because of global heating.
The real horror story, of course, is the rapid disappearance of insects in recent decades. I wonder if horror media has tackled this yet.