3. Them! as a Story of Discovery
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In many horror stories, the characters are confronted
by anomalous situations and inexplicable events.
In the beginning, they may pay little attention
to what is taking place
or explain it away in terms of something
that is safe and known.

There will then be a growing sense of foreboding,
which typically disturbs us before it disturbs the characters
since we know these strange occurrences are a sign
that something terrible is about to be revealed.

Sitting at the edge of our metaphorical seats,
watching the characters misinterpret events,
we have an opportunity to see what it is like
for people to draw incorrect conclusions
out of ignorance and denial.

Then, in most horror stories, we are carried along
as the characters discover the truth
and find the resources in themselves
to overcome the danger.

Them! shows us just such an unfolding
of knowledge and action,
that leads to victory and a happy ending.
At first, the characters in the movie refuse to see
what is in front of them. But, as the story proceeds,
they puzzle out a solution and move from denial
through a number of stages of horror, investigation,
recognition, confrontation and conquest.

In the end, an inhuman pattern of events in the world
brings out a quintessentially human pattern
of thought and behavior in the characters,
which gives them the ability to surmount
an overwhelming enemy.

Let's look at how some of this unfolds in the movie:

In the first "crime" scene at the destroyed trailer,
we see Sgt. Peterson trying to put anomalous clues together --
the torn-out side of a trailer and a giant print in the sand
(the monster movie equivalent of finger prints).

He and his partner are puzzled.
Their response is to investigate
but also to try to fit the anomalies into a familiar pattern.
Faced with the giant print, they explain it away.

"Maybe something was set down there --
(a) bag or can or something like that," says Sgt. Peterson's partner.
"Yea. It could be almost anything," Sgt. Peterson replies.

When Peterson and an ambulance attendant
then hear the high-pitched sound of the ants
it is the attendant who denies it is anything unusual:

"What was that," asks the ambulance attendant.
"I don't know," replies Peterson.
"Must have been the wind - (it) gets pretty freakish in these parts,"
the attendant says.
"Yea," Sgt. Peterson replies, half-heartedly
participating in the attendant's state of denial.

But, even as the characters are driven to deny the truth,
we also see Sgt. Peterson
using clues to figure out that the girl
they found in the desert comes from the destroyed trailer.
He deduces this by taking a piece of plastic
he found in the trailer and fitting it
into a broken place in the plastic head of the doll
carried by the little girl.
He also takes a piece of material from the trailer
and matches it to the clothes on the doll.

We then see Sgt. Peterson's deepening recognition
that something inexplicable is taking place
as he goes through the destroyed store,
which has another torn-out wall,
and a dead store owner. 

Next, the other central characters arrive
and we see the consternation of Agent Graham
after Dr. Medford refuses to tell him and Sgt. Peterson
what may be causing these incidents.

Here, in place of Sgt. Peterson's conflicting desires
to find out the truth but deny its true meaning,
we have a conflict in which an authority figure is concealing information
while another investigator is driven to reveal
what is being concealed.

We now watch as the Drs. Medford
confirm their privately held suspicions,
culminating in the gruesome revelation
in which Dr. Pat Medford encounters the giant ant.

The state of confusion and concealment are now at an end
and there is a confirmed hypothesis that allows investigators
to organize the anomalous events into a pattern.
They see those events as part of a new but explainable
process of nature in which mutations
have brought about the emergence of a form of life
that is engaging in the early stage of a Darwinian struggle
with humanity for dominance.

Extrapolating from what they know about ants,
investigators now conduct an air search
for a giant ant hill in the desert.
At one point, Dr. Medford believes he sees it
but it turns out he is looking at a natural formation.
He is now doing the opposite of what
the police and attendant did --
instead of mistaking the unnatural for something natural,
he mistakes an element of nature for something unnatural and ominous.
Whereas the police and attendant were driven
to fit everything into a familiar mold,
Dr. Medford is now working off a different model.

Soon after, the movie depicts a pilot
who is convinced he saw antlike flying saucers
after he encounters the queen and her consorts on her maiden voyage.
The pilot is committed by people who incorrectly conclude he is crazy,
while one doctor mistakenly believes he is engaged in a publicity stunt.
In each case, mistakes are made
by people who project familiar patterns,
(flying saucers, presumably, being a more familiar idea than giant ants).

Meanwhile, the rest of humanity has no idea what is taking place
and Dr. Medford tells high ranking officials
that they have greeted his reports with incredulity
or wondered how serious the situation is.
So even when people in authority see the pattern,
they don't appreciate the danger.

Each step along the way, the movie is showing us
how we perceive and misperceive the world,
based on hypotheses, and how
those hypotheses can be influenced by our fears
and lack of imagination in a way that threatens our survival.

Like many science fiction movies,
it shows the characters limited by their perceptions, 
created out of their own expectations
and shaped by their culture and psychology.

The characters are trapped
by their inability to see something as real,
because it has no place in their view of the world.

But the movie also shows humanity rising to the challenge
and moving away from confusion, vulnerability, and misperception,
until it comes to a solution in which it sees the danger
and is finally satisfied that all the ant queens
are accounted for and humanity is safe.

As the characters accomplish this
and experience various moments of recognition,
we vicariously do so, as well, by identifying with them.
We identify with the Drs. Medford
as they confirm their fears that a mutation has occurred;
as they recognize that a mound in the desert is the entrance to the nest;
as they confirm their fear that the queens have escaped
when they see the empty eggs,
and as they ultimately are satisfied that the final nest has been destroyed
before the last surviving queens can escape.

We vicariously experience another moment of recognition
when a drunk tells Agent Graham he saw ants in the dry river bed.
Graham then looks out the window and notices the large storm drainage holes
in the side of the river bed, and realizes the ants have used the openings
as entryways to their new nest in the storm drains.

We then get a confirmation
from the mother of the two missing children
that a toy (antlike) airplane found near a storm drain opening
belongs to her children,
so investigators can be reasonably certain
the children are trapped inside with the ants.

Every step along the way, the story is moved along
not only by the destruction wrought by the ants
and their largely unseen expansion across the landscape,
but also by moments of recognition and by the characters'
refusal to be excluded from knowing what is taking place.
This gives us one of the essential conflicts in the movie,
in which ignorance, denial and the concealment of information
is pitted against knowing the truth.
This conflict is part of all of the movie's central conflicts,
which include man versus nature (and the unnatural);
man versus man; man versus society;
society versus society; and man versus himself.

In the end, it is because the desire to know wins
that humanity is victorious and will have a future.

Once again, as we watch all this unfold,
we experience it in ourselves.
From the start, we know that some kind of
unnatural horror is waiting to show itself,
and most of us have a pretty good idea what will be revealed.
But, at various points along the way,
we are puzzled and apprehensive along with the characters
because we don't know completely what to expect
and aren't prepared for the horror that will emerge.
We know we will be disturbed
and that there is no way to fully master the fear
or avoid the horror ahead of time,
even as we know it is a form of play
and we are safe in our seats.

By identifying with the characters' desire to know
and their courage in facing their fears
as they move toward a happy ending,
from the safety of our viewing position outside the action,
we experience qualities in ourselves
that help us master our own fears and
enhance our own sense of optimism about
our ability to deal with life's challenges.

But the movie doesn't only evoke in us
a desire to master challenges.
It ties this desire to events taking place
in our own world by telling us
that what is depicted in the movie is in fact going on today.
We too are failing to put things together into the correct pattern and,
as a result, we are missing the danger created by our misuse of science.

We have to become like the characters, the movie tells us,
and learn how to put puzzles together.
We have to learn how to organize and act and confront danger.
It is the forging of insight and action
with the compassion in evidence throughout the story,
it says, that is our best hope of overcoming the monsters
of totalitarianism, militarism, dehumanization and dangerous technology
that have been called to the surface by the modern world.

The movie brings this theme home in the final scene
when it leaves us satisfied that the danger is passed
but uneasy at the possibility that other dangers
may be out there, as well.

As Dr. Medford speaks in this last scene,
we are reassured by our identification with him,
because he is an authority figure who isn't afraid to face the truth.
But we are simultaneously disturbed by the truth he offers:
"When man entered the atomic age,
he opened a door into a new world," he says.
"What we eventually find in that new world
nobody can predict."

The "we" in that sentence is us, the audience.
Through these techniques, the movie
lets us experience the danger and uncertainty of the modern age
along with qualities in ourselves
that will allow us to face these dangers
even if, initially, we are tempted to turn away.

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What kind of monsters are they?
You can go to Part 4, "Them! as Myth",
to find out.