Phase IV

Phase IV (1974) — watch online on iFILM: a science fiction film directed by Saul Bass, starring Nigel Davenport and Michael Murphy. The only feature film from the designer behind the title sequences of Psycho, Vertigo, and Anatomy of a Murder.

Something has changed in the Arizona desert. Ant colonies of different species stop competing and start cooperating — building complex geometric mounds, attacking farms with coordinated precision, responding to threats as a single intelligence. Two scientists set up a research station in the middle of it: entomologist Lesko and analyst Hubbs disagree on whether to study the phenomenon or destroy it. A young woman from a nearby farm adds a third variable neither planned for.

Bass and his crew spent months in the field shooting actual ants in extreme close-up — the macro photography remains striking. The film moves slowly on purpose, building dread through pattern and silence rather than action. It sits closer to 1970s paranoid fiction than to conventional horror. Stream Phase IV (1974) in full online on iFILM.