‘King of the Ants’ – Stuart Gordon’s Underseen Genre Mashup Is Worth Watching 20 Years Later

These days, Film Noir is mostly associated with cynical private detectives and obnoxious narration, but these movies are actually deeply rooted in the horrors of German Expressionism. In fact, many of the genre’s pioneers fled directly from Germany to Hollywood during World War II, where a growing fascination with True Crime journalism combined with wartime anxieties led to the creation of a new breed of crime thriller. These dimly lit movies told stories of murder and betrayal in nightmarish cityscapes populated by morally grey characters, so it’s only natural that these stories are at their best when presented with a touch of horror.

And while you’ll find your fair share of terrifying moments in films like Sin City or even Chinatown, today I’d like to discuss a quintessential example of horror-adjacent cinema, Stuart Gordon’s criminally underseen King of the Ants – a grimy little gem that I think might be more fun now than it was back in 2003.

Like many of the best Noir movies, King of the Ants is adapted from a darkly comedic novel about the seedy underbelly of ’90s Los Angeles. Written by the multitalented English artist Charlie Higson (who would later write the screenplay for the adaptation), the book was something of a moderate success, but a film version of the story would only become a reality after the project was championed by none other than the late, great George Wendt. The Cheers star personally approached his old theater friend (and master of splatter cinema) Stuart Gordon in order to develop Higson’s story into a movie, and Gordon reportedly fell in love with the novel’s strange tone.

Unfortunately, it would take over seven years for Gordon to finance the project, as the story’s disturbing elements made studios hesitant to develop a movie that they felt was too horrific for crime thriller fans and too tame for horror enthusiasts. It was The Asylum that ultimately saved the picture, with the company deciding to take a huge risk by making King of the Ants their first official production, as they had previously only acted as a distributor. Nevertheless, production went by smoothly (albeit with an extremely limited budget), and the film premiered at the 2003 edition of Seattle’s International Film Festival, with a wide DVD release scheduled for June of the following year.

In the finished film, we follow a down-on-his-luck Angeleno named Sean Crawley (Chris McKenna) as he stumbles his way into a job as an amateur hitman once contractor Duke Wayne (George Wendt) introduces him to the dangerous world of shady real estate development. Unfortunately for Sean, his employers realize that it would be much easier to simply make their bumbling hitman disappear than to actually pay him for his service, so they decide to tie up loose ends in the most horrific way imaginable.

SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?

Not only did King of the Ants sell and rent enough copies to convince The Asylum to continue producing movies, but the film also reviewed relatively well despite its low budget and lack of mass market appeal. Unfortunately, the flick’s limited distribution and niche subject matter meant that it couldn’t quite reach the same amount of genre fans as Gordon’s previous projects.

This is a huge shame, as there’s a lot to love about the movie if you can get past the low production value. For starters, the lo-fi cinematography feels even more impressive now than it did back in the day, with naturalistic lighting and real locations working together to ground viewers in an appropriately oppressive yet entirely believable depiction of a gritty Los Angeles.

The script is also deeply bizarre in all of the right ways, with the story pulling Crawley in unpredictable directions as he becomes part of a warped version of the criminal conspiracies he once enjoyed inside of pulpy paperbacks. While I wouldn’t want to ruin the experience for readers who have yet to see the film, suffice to say that a sizable portion of the runtime is dedicated to torturing our main character, with Sean only making things worse for himself by deciding to act like the exaggerated protagonists of his favorite detective stories.

This subtle meta twist only works because McKenna does such a great job of establishing the character as something of a bumbling loser during the first half of the film, with his transformation into something decidedly more animalistic feeling even more absurd when you have something to compare it too. Of course, the rest of the cast also does a great job of bringing these tropey characters to life in a believable way, with both Wendt and Daniel Baldwin delivering stand-out performances as burly criminals with a lot more going on underneath the surface than you might initially expect.

AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?

We’ve already established that Film Noir is at its best when focusing on the horrific parts of criminal activity, but it takes an experienced director to recognize precisely what common clichés can be turned into nightmare fuel without fully switching genres. That’s why it made a lot of sense for Wendt to bring King of the Ants to Gordon, as this dark genre mash-up has a lot in common with the transgressive stage-plays that used to get Gordon in trouble with the law before he began working in film.

While this is a grounded thriller at its core, the movie manages to sneak in a memorable collection of surreal scenes that harken back to the effects-heavy partnerships between Gordon and Brian Yuzna. From concussion-induced dream sequences featuring horrific monsters to literal jump-scares as our protagonist suffers from PTSD, it’s clear that Gordon is having a lot of fun with Higson’s source material despite removing a lot of the novel’s original humor.

The film may not show as much of Sean’s horrific ordeal as the source material, but King of the Ants somehow feels meaner than the original story. With the exception of the cathartic finale, almost none of the violence here is stylized, and even the initial murder feels more awkward than badass. In fact, every single punch, stab and gunshot is depicted as a messy and ugly affair, and I think this approach meshes quite well with the idea that Sean’s is being forced to confront his glamorized view of criminal life.

That’s why the torture sequence feels so effective, with Gordon even adding a body-horror element as Sean comes to terms with the fact that the thugs intend to reduce him into an animalistic prisoner trapped inside of his own body. And as uncomfortable as this is to watch, it’s almost disappointing to have the film shift gears once Sean inevitably escapes from this horrific predicament and mostly recovers from what should have been irreversible damage to both his body and mind.

King of the Ants is definitely an acquired taste, but it’s also one of Stuart Gordon’s most interesting movies – not to mention one hell of a disturbing deconstruction of Film Noir tropes. That’s why I’m not surprised that the movie still boasts a cult following, with McKenna even getting to briefly reprise his role as Crawley in Joe Lynch’s Suitable Flesh back in 2023. And while the movie suffers from awkward pacing and a severe case of tonal whiplash, I think genre fans will have a blast revisiting this strange little thriller from a time when The Asylum was content with producing movies that didn’t require over-the-top CGI to be entertaining.