It Happened at Lakewood Manor is a 1977 ecological horror film about an old hotel which is attacked by an army of poisonous ants. It has also been released as Panic at Lakewood Manor and Ants!
The TV movie was directed by Robert Sheerer from a teleplay by Guerdon Trueblood for Alan Landsburgh Productions.
The movie stars Robert Foxworth (Prophecy; Damien: Omen II), Lynda Day George (Pieces; Cruise into Terror; Day of the Animals), Suzanne Somers, Myrna Loy, Brian Dennehy and Bernie Casey (Gargoyles).
Plot [contains spoilers]:
During construction at the old Lakewood Hotel, two workers stumble upon a swarm of ants in a closed section of the building. After discovering the ants to be unusually aggressive and dangerous, the workers attempt to get the warning out but are accidentally buried alive.
Shortly after, the unscrupulous real estate magnate Anthony Fleming (Gerald Gordon) and his partner and mistress Gloria (Suzanne Somers) arrive at the hotel, there to haggle with the elderly proprietor, Ethel Adams (Myrna Loy) and her daughter Valerie (Lynda Day George) as they pursue plans to convert Lakewood into a casino.
In the meantime, foreman Mike Carr (Robert Foxworth), who is in a relationship with Valerie, and his co-worker and friend Vince (Bernie Casey) find the two missing workers, dead from poisoning. The ants begin to emerge, attacking a boy, then killing a hotel cook, and nearly killing Vince as he and Mike investigate the pit in which their men are buried.
Peggy Kenter (Anita Gillette), a Board of Health (BOH) inspector and an acquaintance of Carr’s, decides to quarantine the hotel, thinking a virus is at work. Mike soon discovers that there is an immense ant nest in the pit, and concludes that these insects are responsible for the attacks. Tom (Bruce French), a BOH researcher, finally discovers that the ants are highly venomous and resistant to insecticides.
By that time, the ants are swarming the hotel by the millions, killing Gloria and Peggy’s assistant White (Steve Franken) and driving Carr, Valerie, Ethel, Fleming, hotel employee Richard (Barry Van Dyke) and his girlfriend Linda (Karen Lamm) upstairs. Vince alerts the authorities, who attempt to contain the ants with a trench – filled first with water, then with burning gasoline after Tom points out that army ants cross streams on bridges built from ant corpses – and rescue most of the people trapped inside the hotel.
Carr, Valerie and Fleming, the only people remaining, are eventually cornered by the ants; Tom tells them not to move, to give the ants no reason to attack them. As the ants begin crawling all over them, Fleming panickedly launches himself from the room’s balcony to the swimming pool below in a desperate attempt to escape, but misses the jump and dies in the fall. Shortly afterwards, two suited-up rescuers arrive and take Carr and Valerie to safety.
When they are taken away by the ambulance, Tom assures Carr that such a case will not likely recur, as the unique environmental conditions at the hotel estate were vital for the existence of the ants’ nest.
YouTube reviews:
Free to watch online on YouTube [720p]:
Trailer:
Borrowing Blockbusters: Jawsploitation – The Best, Best Worst and Weirdest Jaws Knock-Offs:
Cast and characters:
Robert Foxworth … Mike Carr; Lynda Day George … Valerie Adams; Gerald Gordon … Tony Fleming; Bernie Casey … Vince; Barry Van Dyke … Richard Cyril; Karen Lamm … Linda Howard; Myrna Loy … Ethel; Anita Gillette … Peggy Kenter; Steve Franken … White; Brian Dennehy … Fire Chief; Suzanne Somers … Gloria; Bruce French … Tom; Barbara Brownell … Marjorie; Stacy Keach Sr … Doc; René Enríquez … Luis; Moosie Drier … Tommy; Vincent Cobb … Peter; Jim Storm … Attendant
Filming locations:
The College Inn, Qualicum Beach, British Columbia, Canada
Film facts:
Veteran Hollywood stuntman and second-unit director Conrad E. Palmisano was buried alive for one scene. With his only source of oxygen coming from a small garden hose connected to him underground, he gave strict instructions to the surrounding film crew: “Bury me once, bury me good. I only want to do this once”.
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