10 Movies With Ant-Sized Characters You Have To See

Based on the classic Richard Matheson novel, The Incredible Shrinking Man isn’t about a guy who grows smaller due to some sort of shrink ray. Instead, he just naturally begins to shrink out of nowhere.

Why? Well, he was exposed some mysterious radioactive mist while on vacation in the beginning of the movie, and so he keeps shrinking until he’s eventually only a few inches tall. In one of the most memorable scenes, he’s attacked by his own cat which is now a giant beast to him, and he takes shelter inside a dollhouse. The shot of Scott opening the door to see a huge cat meowing at him is exactly what you want from these kinds of movies.

He ends up trapped in his seemingly endless basement trying to escape, slipping through cracks of wood and even battling a giant spider in a sequence that’s actually pretty terrifying. The movie really plays with perspective in brilliant ways with little moments like a few drops of water causing giant splashes in Scott’s eyes, something that would later be used in a lot of these films. It’s definitely one of the greatest shrinking movies ever, and for a 1957 flick with this subject matter, it’s surprising how well it holds up.