Films focused on the destruction of humankind by nonhuman populations rising en masse suggest that the apocalypse will not be caused by unknown alien entities or the supernatural. Rather such films as The Birds (1963, elements of which strongly prefigure zombie classics such as Night of the Living Dead, 1968), as well as Empire of the Ants (1977) and Phase IV (1974), propose it is the very nature that humans encounter every day that will wreak terror on them for from birds to bugs; nature is shown to be able to outwit and outnumber humanity in order to gain supremacy. While the motives of the avian attackers in The Birds are unknown, the reason for the formic aggression are revealed—in Empire of the Ants, the ants aim to eradicate human’s free will, thereby making humans entirely subordinate while the somewhat ambiguous ending of Phase IV suggests the ants wish not to destroy humankind as we know it but to create a new hybrid form of human that lacks autonomy.