Trivia / Them!

• Actor-Shared Background: James Whitmore had previously served in the military, making him rather apt to play Ben Peterson.
• California Doubling: The first part of the film takes place in the Chihuahuan Desert in New Mexico, but was of course filmed in the Mojave Desert in California. Notably, Joshua trees can be seen, which aren't native to New Mexico.
• Cast the Expert: The soldiers were played by US-military veterans, who knew how to operate the World War II equipment loaned to the production by the army.
• Completely Different Title:
  • In Sweden, the film was infamously misstranslated as "Spindlarna" ("The Spiders").
  • In Italy it's known as "Assault to the Earth".
  • In Brazil, it-sknown as "Mundo em Perigo" ("World in Peril").
• Executive Meddling: Was going to be in color and 3D before the studio got cold feet. This could be argued to have been a good thing, as the planned color of the ants (green) could have been Nightmare Retardant.
• Follow the Leader: This film owes a bit to The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, and was, itself, the inspiration for countless subsequent movies about big bugs, none of which were anywhere near as good as it or Beast, and most of which wound up on Mystery Science Theater 3000.
• Orphaned Reference: There are quite a few shots of flamethrowers being aimed directly at the camera and extreme close-ups of the ants, which were the planned set-ups for when the film was to be shot in 3-D (see below).
• Real Life Writes the Plot: No more than three giant ants are ever seen on screen together at a time. This was of course because only three had been made for the film.
• Referenced by...:
  • Princesses of the Pizza Parlor: The first Episode precedes the arrival of ant-monsters with a yell of "Them!"
  • Fallout 3, which has a quest called 'Those!' featuring giant fire-breathing ants.
  • It Came from the Desert (1989) is an open homage to this film.
  • It also appears in Zombies Ate My Neighbors as a Demonic Spider and the Command & Conquer: Red Alert secret campaign "It Came From Red Alert!", which also features missions with one-word, exclamation-pointed names like this film.
  • The climax of the movie, including the rescue of the two children, is referenced in a Mark Hunt in Final Fantasy XII.
  • The first issue of the Justice League of America relaunch was titled Them!. The remaining issues of the arc were The Day the Earth Stood Still, The War of the Worlds, and Invaders From Mars.
  • The Earth Defense Force series is practically a Spiritual Licensee, updated to a modern sci-fi setting.
  • Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch just straight up uses footage from this film as the Pelekai ʻohana watch it on TV for a family fun night. It should be noted that Lilo is an Unabashed B-Movie Fan.
• Science Marches On: Ants, at least ones in America, don't make noise; in the 1950s, this was a point of debate among entomologists, as ultrasonic microphones of the needed sensitivity didn't exist. Forgiveable today by the Rule of Scary as the sound is very chilling.
• Screwed by the Network: The film was originally planned to be a big, prestige picture, shot in color with the great stop motion effects work of Ray Harryhausen. But studio boss Jack Warner, who didn't like science fiction and didn't believe mass audiences could possibly like something he didn't, slashed their budget to the point that they had to do the effects in-house, then slapped them with a rookie producer so when they decided to try to cut back and instead use cheaper optical effects, as was quite successfully done with Tarantula!, that also got axed in favor of in-house practical effects. The end result was giant ants that were expensive enough to cut into the film's profits, but not actually good enough to do the film any favors.
• Scully Box: James Whitmore wore lifts in his shoes to minimize the height difference between himself and James Arness.
• What Could Have Been:
  • The film was originally planned to be shot in both 3-D and colour. The 3-D camera rig malfunctioned while filming the test footage, and they opted to just shoot in black and white widescreen. Along the way, they scrapped the widescreen format too.
  • The infamous bone scene was to feature an ant holding a human skull instead of a ribcage. This scene was also supposed to feature more than one ant, as provided in various promotional images. The ants would then fight over the skull before dropping it amongst the pile of bones. That pile of bones included the skull of a child and dead ants.
  • The third act was going to take place in New York, with the giant ants invading the subway system. This was changed for budget reasons, and because NYC Transportation Secretary was horrified at the idea. Fortunately, the Warner Bros executives were inspired by the chase scenes in He Walked By Night, filmed in the storm drain tunnels under Los Angeles.

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