’80s hair metal band Sonic Grave are trying to get back in the game in the current age , and they are on the road to a hip music festival where they hope to attract new fans at the behest of their manager Danny (Tom Arnold). Along the way, bassist Art (Sean Astin) makes a pit stop for some legendary power-packed peyote… a drug that comes with a curse attached; if anything on the sacred land is harmed while on the drug a horrible fate will befall those responsible.
I forgot to mention; Art isn’t the brightest dude out there, and neither are his band mates Merrick (Jake Busey), Stevie (Leisha Hailey), and Pager (Rhys Coiro) for that matter, and soon a talking ant is pissed on and a deadly evil is released which results in our heroes getting their creature-feature cherries popped by Hymenoptera from hell!
Holy fuckin’ cats, Dead Ant is a rollickin’ good time in our beloved horror biz! The story, though played for laughs, is a solid monster movie at it’s core… real ’50’s Drive-In fodder but amped up to the nines with nonsense, but with a fantastic (and funny) cast, some great tunes, and bouts of grizzly gore goodness!
Speaking of that cast, Tom Arnold is absolutely off the charts hilarious here, but Busey definitely gives him a run for his money. Grounding the proceedings are the more relatively down-to-Earth (as much as can be possible here) performances from Hailey and Coiro… but honestly, there isn’t a bum performance in the bunch, and everyone involved seems to be having an absolute fucking blast being involved in this thing.
And that is what makes this flick so damn entertaining; Co-writer (working from a story by Hank Braxton and Dan Sinclair)/Director Ron Carlson infuses Dead Ant with so much enthusiasm and heart that it’s impossible not to just grin ear to ear as you watch the preternatural proceedings play out… just as you imagine everyone working on it was too!
If I had to (begrudgingly) say something negative about this flick, it’s that it relies on CG where it really didn’t have to. Now, the ants had to be digital I’d wager due to budget and time and all that… and admittedly they look cool enough, but with the impressive practical gore on display at times, the few times CG is used to realize bloodshed stick out like a sore-ass thumb for sure.
Let’s bottom-line this bad-ass bitch. Ask yourself this: “Do I like hair metal, Native American curses, drugs, malicious ants, and beautiful women?” Now, if you are a long time reader of my wicked words, you know damn well I do, and I’d bet demons to doughnuts you do too, so crack a few brews, spark one up, and soak in all the awesome Dead Ant has to offer!
