Guerdon Trueblood, who wrote this, really had quite the resume. The grandson of General Billy Mitchell, the founding father of the U.S. Air Force, he was a dependable writer for TV as well as writing and directing The Candy Snatchers. You can also check out a few other TV movies he wrote like The Savage Bees, SST Death Flight, Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo and even the theatrically released — and reviled — Jaws 3D.

Ants — also known as It Happened at Lakewood Manor and Panic at Lakewood Manor — was directed by Robert Scheerer, who also made Poor Devil, the “Primal Scream” episode of Kolchak and episodes of Star Trek The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and Voyager.

Probably the main reason to watch this is Lynda Day George, who we all know and love from movies like Pieces, Day of the Animals, Beyond Evil and Mortuary. But you also get Myrna Loy, Suzanne Somers (just before Three’s Company), Bernie Casey and Brian Dennehy.

As for the Lakewood Manor, a real estate madman wants to turn it into a casino while its owner (Loy) wants to keep it as it is. As it is involves a pit of venomous ants that can’t be destroyed by pesticides and love to murder people. Imagine — millions of ants covering people, who can’t move or they’ll be killed, ants upon ants taking the life of the soon-to-be Chrissy Snow.

In the 70s, I spent most of my childhood worrying that I would be killed by a bug. Now, I’m more sure it’s going to be a heart attack any day now.

This movie is coming out from Kino Lorber in 2022. Yes! I love that those guys keep putting out physical releases of made for TV movies. Please support them.