{ "id": "epn4mj3hgh", "slug": "phase-iv", "title": "Phase IV", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.science-fiction-fantasy", "label": "Science fiction and fantasy films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.science-fiction-fantasy" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.science-fiction-fantasy.science-fiction-and-fantasy-films-of-the", "label": "Science fiction and fantasy films of the 1970s", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.science-fiction-fantasy.science-fiction-and-fantasy-films-of-the" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.science-fiction-fantasy", "label": "United States · 1946 to 2000: Science fiction and fantasy films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.science-fiction-fantasy", "path": [ { "id": "geo.us", "label": "United States", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946", "label": "United States · 1946 to 2000", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.science-fiction-fantasy", "label": "Science fiction and fantasy films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.science-fiction-fantasy" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Phase IV (1974) is Saul Bass's only feature film, a science fiction horror work in which cosmic radiation gives an Arizona ant colony collective intelligence; it flopped, won Trieste's Grand Prix, and its cut ending resurfaced in 2012.", "snippet": "Phase IV (1974) is Saul Bass's only feature film, a science fiction horror work in which cosmic radiation gives an Arizona ant colony collective intelligence; it flopped, won Trieste's Grand Prix, and its cut ending resurfaced in 2012.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.science-fiction-fantasy.science-fiction-and-fantasy-films-of-the", "markdown": "# Phase IV\n\n**Phase IV** is a 1974 science fiction horror film directed by [Saul Bass](https://www.edgepedia.org/saul-bass), in which a cosmic event transforms a desert ant colony in Arizona into a collectively intelligent force that turns against humanity. It is the only feature film Bass ever directed; he is better known as one of the most influential graphic designers of the 20th century, responsible for title sequences for films including *Psycho*, *Vertigo*, and *The Man With the Golden Arm*.[1](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2008/films/phase-iv) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/76252/phase-iv)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Director / writer | Saul Bass (feature directorial debut); screenplay by Mayo Simon[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55391-PHASE-IV) |\n| Release | United States theatrical release 1974; New York opening 18 October 1974[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55391-PHASE-IV) |\n| Principal cast | Nigel Davenport (Dr. Ernest Hubbs), Michael Murphy (James Lesko), Lynne Frederick (Kendra Eldridge)[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55391-PHASE-IV) |\n| Running time | Reported as 84, 86, or 93 minutes depending on the source[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55391-PHASE-IV) |\n| Rating history | Initially rated R by the MPAA; after an appeal, awarded PG[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55391-PHASE-IV) |\n| Award | Grand Prix at the International Festival of Science Fiction Films, Trieste, Italy (1975)[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55391-PHASE-IV) |\n| Reception | A box office failure on release that later acquired cult status[4](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/phase-iv/) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Plot\n\nThe film opens with a cosmic event: a solar flare from the sun, from which a colony of ants seems to pick up a signal that shifts them up the evolutionary scale and gives them a purpose, to dominate the planet. The ants first eliminate their nearest threats, spiders, mice, and lizards, and then turn their attention to humans. The title's phases refer to the stages of evolution the ants pass through in asserting dominance over mankind.[1](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2008/films/phase-iv)\n\nA biologist, Dr. Ernest Hubbs ([Nigel Davenport](https://www.edgepedia.org/nigel-davenport)), notices that traditional antagonisms between ant colonies in upland Arizona have ceased, allowing the population to grow, and reports his findings to the [National Science Foundation](https://www.edgepedia.org/national-science-foundation).[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55391-PHASE-IV) With James Lesko (Michael Murphy), a colleague skilled in computer analysis, he sets up an ant-proof dome laboratory equipped with computers that interpret the ants' communications.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55391-PHASE-IV) • [5](https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/phase-iv) The local Eldridge family is ordered to evacuate; when their departure is precipitated by an ant attack and the facility's defensive poison spray, teenage Kendra Eldridge ([Lynne Frederick](https://www.edgepedia.org/lynne-frederick)) is the only survivor and is taken into the dome.[6](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2023/03/phase-iv-1974-review/)\n\n**Escalation.** When the scientists spread yellow poison over the area, annihilating millions of ants, the survivors develop an immunity and strike back.[5](https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/phase-iv) The ants attack the dome with heat-focusing mirror surfaces that disable the computers, and destroy its air-conditioning unit. Lesko transmits a rectangular drawing to the ants in an effort to communicate and receives back an identical drawing with a small circle containing a dot. Kendra interprets this to mean the ants want her, and secretly leaves the dome. Hubbs, crazed by ant bites, leaves to destroy the ant queen but falls into a pit where the ants devour him. Lesko finds Kendra in an underground chamber and realizes that the ants want both of them, to be changed and made part of the ants' world.[6](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2023/03/phase-iv-1974-review/)\n\n### The lost ending\n\nBass originally filmed a surreal montage, described by John Brosnan in *Future Tense: The Cinema of Science Fiction* as lasting four minutes and showing what life would be like on the \"new\" Earth, but the distributor cut it before release. The theatrical ending instead closes with a voice-over from Lesko admitting he does not know what the ants are planning.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/76252/phase-iv) • [10](https://www.starburstmagazine.com/reviews/phase-iv-1974/) In 2012, archivists at the [Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences](https://www.edgepedia.org/academy-of-motion-picture-arts-and-sciences) in Los Angeles discovered the excised reel while compiling footage for a Saul Bass retrospective; the found ending was in better condition than the theatrical version then available.[11](https://theplaylist.net/saul-bass-lost-original-ending-for-phase-iv-discovered-in-los-angeles-20120626/) • [7](https://www.framerated.co.uk/phase-iv-1974/) After Bass's death in 1996, his family had donated his papers and film holdings to the Academy, including storyboards, production files, and film material.[12](https://lacma.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/science-fiction-after-kubrick-saul-bass-phase-iv/) The reconstituted ending received its New York premiere at a 2014 screening at the Walter Reade Theater.[4](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/phase-iv/)\n\n## Production\n\nBass had previously directed television commercials, title sequences, and short films; *Phase IV* marked his feature directorial debut.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55391-PHASE-IV) [Principal photography](https://www.edgepedia.org/principal-photography) took place in early 1973 in London, England, with filming on location and at [Pinewood Studios](https://www.edgepedia.org/pinewood-studios); a September 1971 Hollywood Reporter item had referred to the project under the alternate title *Phase II*.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55391-PHASE-IV) The production companies were Alced Productions, Ltd. and PBR Productions, Inc., with Paul B. Radin producing, Dick Bush as cinematographer, Willy Kemplen as editor, John Barry as production designer, and Brian Gascoigne composing the score.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55391-PHASE-IV) • [1](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2008/films/phase-iv)\n\n**The ant photography.** The film's most distinctive element is its extensive footage of live ants, masterminded by the animal photographer Ken Middleham, credited with the insect sequences. Middleham had also worked on *The Hellstrom Chronicle* (1971), an Academy Award-winning documentary premised on the idea that insects, not mankind, will win the battle for global dominance; *Phase IV* dramatizes a similar premise as fiction.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/76252/phase-iv) • [7](https://www.framerated.co.uk/phase-iv-1974/)\n\n**Authorship dispute.** After a February 1973 *Los Angeles Times* article described the film as coming out of the director's head, screenwriter Mayo Simon wrote a letter to the editor asserting his contribution: \"what appears on the screen originated in the screenplay.\"[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55391-PHASE-IV)\n\n## Release and reception\n\nThe film was initially rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America in January 1974; the filmmakers appealed, and after a statement by [Paramount Pictures](https://www.edgepedia.org/paramount-pictures) vice president Norman Flicker, the rating was changed to PG.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55391-PHASE-IV) It opened in New York on 18 October 1974.[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55391-PHASE-IV)\n\n**Contemporary reviews.** Reception was mixed and the film was a commercial failure.[4](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/phase-iv/) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/76252/phase-iv) The *Variety* reviewer wrote that the film \"didn't get the bugs worked out before release\" and that \"cinematically, the ants are never very menacing.\"[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/76252/phase-iv) A.H. Weiler of *The New York Times* was more favorable, calling it a \"pictorially persuasive adventure\" while noting that it \"cries for a Phase V of fuller explanations.\"[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/76252/phase-iv) *TIME* praised its \"interludes of such haunted visual intensity that it becomes, at its best, a nightmare incarnate,\" while finding the dialogue and characterizations weak.[8](https://time.com/archive/6842677/phase-iv-the-ants-are-coming/) On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 50% Tomatometer from 18 reviews.[9](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/phase_iv_1974)\n\nDespite the poor commercial performance, the film won the Grand Prix at Trieste's International Festival of Science Fiction Films in 1975,[3](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55391-PHASE-IV) and garnered cult status within about a year of its release.[4](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/phase-iv/) Bass never directed another feature.[10](https://www.starburstmagazine.com/reviews/phase-iv-1974/)\n\n## Style and interpretation\n\nThe film is noted for its visual design rather than its characters. Critics have highlighted the juxtaposition of the ants' regimented, purposeful collective behavior against the ineffectual individualism of the human trio, and sequences such as giant geometric anthills looming over the desert and ants crawling from holes chewed in a dead man's hand.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/76252/phase-iv) • [8](https://time.com/archive/6842677/phase-iv-the-ants-are-coming/) The final sequence, in which Kendra, Jim, and the central ant intelligence merge, is an expressionistic collage of abstract images, reflections, cross-fades, and superimpositions.[1](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2008/films/phase-iv)\n\nInterpretations have varied: the film has been read as an ecological commentary, as political, and as an expression of the anxieties of its time.[4](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/phase-iv/) The critic Adrian Martin places it in a lineage of science fiction films, alongside *2001: A Space Odyssey* and Tarkovsky's *Solaris*, that narrates humans passing beyond human consciousness.[13](https://www.adrianmartinfilmcritic.com/reviews/p/phase_iv.html) The reviewer Jeff Stafford of Turner Classic Movies calls it possibly the first and only \"killer ant\" art film, closer in spirit to *Last Year at Marienbad* than to conventional monster movies like *Them!*[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/76252/phase-iv)\n\n## References\n\n1. [Phase IV, International Film Festival Rotterdam programme notes](https://iffr.com/en/iffr/2008/films/phase-iv)\n2. [Jeff Stafford, \"Phase IV,\" Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/76252/phase-iv)\n3. [Phase IV (1974), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/55391-PHASE-IV)\n4. [Phase IV, Film Society of Lincoln Center](https://www.filmlinc.org/films/phase-iv/)\n5. [Phase IV, Paramount Pictures](https://www.paramountpictures.com/movies/phase-iv)\n6. [Jonathan Rosenbaum, \"Phase IV\" (1974 review), Monthly Film Bulletin](https://jonathanrosenbaum.net/2023/03/phase-iv-1974-review/)\n7. [\"Phase IV (1974),\" Frame Rated](https://www.framerated.co.uk/phase-iv-1974/)\n8. [\"Phase IV: The Ants Are Coming,\" TIME, 14 October 1974](https://time.com/archive/6842677/phase-iv-the-ants-are-coming/)\n9. [Phase IV (1974), Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/phase_iv_1974)\n10. [\"Phase IV (1974),\" Starburst Magazine](https://www.starburstmagazine.com/reviews/phase-iv-1974/)\n11. [\"Saul Bass' Lost Original Ending For 'Phase IV' Discovered In Los Angeles,\" The Playlist, 26 June 2012](https://theplaylist.net/saul-bass-lost-original-ending-for-phase-iv-discovered-in-los-angeles-20120626/)\n12. [\"Science Fiction After Kubrick: Saul Bass' Phase IV,\" Unframed, LACMA blog, 2013](https://lacma.wordpress.com/2013/03/19/science-fiction-after-kubrick-saul-bass-phase-iv/)\n13. [Adrian Martin, \"Phase IV\" review](https://www.adrianmartinfilmcritic.com/reviews/p/phase_iv.html)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Science fiction and fantasy films (individual works) › Science fiction and fantasy films of the 1970s*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/phase-iv", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/phase-iv.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Phase IV\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/phase-iv. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Phase IV](https://www.edgepedia.org/phase-iv)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/phase-iv](https://www.edgepedia.org/phase-iv). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Phase IV\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/phase-iv. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Phase IV is Saul Bass's only feature film, a science fiction horror work in which cosmic radiation gives an Arizona ant colony collective intelligence; it flopped, won Trieste's Grand Prix, and its cut ending resurfaced in 2012." }