Villain(s)  Giant mantis

Actor(s):  Craig Stevens, Alix Talton, William Hopper, Donald Randolph

Brief Description  Released in May 1957 and directed by Nathan Juran, The Deadly Mantis is a classic Universal-International sci-fi monster feature. It follows a 200-foot prehistoric praying mantis freed from an Arctic iceberg by volcanic activity. The voracious insect terrorizes the DEW Line, moves south toward Washington and New York, and is finally stopped by the military and a paleontologist.

Plot:
The story kicks off in the Arctic, where a volcanic eruption and subsequent shifts in the polar ice caps cause an iceberg to fracture. This event releases a 200-foot-long, thousand-ton prehistoric praying mantis that had been trapped in suspended animation for millions of years. The creature begins to attack remote military installations along the Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line—the joint U.S.–Canadian radar defense network—wiping out outposts and leaving behind massive, unexplainable slash marks in the snow. When an Air Force transport plane is downed, military personnel uncover a mysterious, five-foot-long organic spur at the crash site.

Unsure of what they are dealing with, Colonel Joe Parkman enlists the expertise of paleontologist Dr. Nedrick Jackson and museum magazine editor Marge Blaine. Dr. Jackson identifies the spur as a piece of a giant insect leg, revealing that they are hunting a carnivorous, gargantuan praying mantis. As the mantis flies south toward warmer latitudes looking for food, it spreads chaos across North America. After terrorizing civilians and scaling the Washington Monument, the beast is ultimately cornered by the U.S. military inside the Manhattan Holland Tunnel, where Colonel Parkman leads a final, desperate chemical gas attack to destroy it once and for all.