Paramount Home Entertainment has provided ComingSoon.net with a very special exclusive clip of the previously lost, now rediscovered and restored ending from director Saul Bass’ 1974 cult classic Phase IV. Check it out in the player below! The 45th anniversary edition of the film, which includes the restored ending, is now available as a Digital download from Apple TV.
In Phase IV, desert ants suddenly form a collective intelligence and begin to wage war on the inhabitants. It is up to two scientists and a stray girl they rescue from the ants to destroy them.
The ending, which was unearthed and shown at LA’s now-defunct Cinefamily in 2012, is a hallucinogenic climax in the same surreal vein as Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was removed from the film by Paramount executives before the film’s original release in ’74, and has never been available on home video until today. Phase IV was both the first and last directorial effort from Saul Bass, whose legendary work as a title, storyboard and poster designer includes Psycho, Vertigo, West Side Story, It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, The Shining, Big, Goodfellas and Casino.
The film stars Nigel Davenport, Michael Murphy, Lynne Frederick and Alan Gifford. It was written by Mayo Simon and directed by Bass, and proved a box office disappointment, later being featured on an early episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 in 1989.
