The exception is Pierce Nace’s wildly amoral Eat Them Alive (1977), in which Dyke Mellis tries to double-cross his criminal associates after a robbery. They foil his plan, castrate him, and leave him to die in the desert. Dyke recovers and is hiding in South America almost a decade later when an earthquake raises an island full of ten-foot-tall praying mantises off the coast. Immediately turning giant praying mantises into giant praying-mantis lemonade, Dyke trains them to kill at his command.
