TAGLINE: "They Look Like Rocks...Possess A High Intelligence...Have No Eyes...And Eat Ashes...They Travel In Your Car Exhaust...They Make Fire...They Kill!"
Welcome to an insect infested episode of My Favorite Bad Movies. This month, I wanna talk about these two creepy crawlies that I received in my earlier plea for VHS movies so that I could make my summer redneck fantasy of watching horror films on VHS out in my back yard come true. These were two of the films that I had the pleasure? of watching outdoors this summer (before the heat drove me and any sane person indoors to watch tv where god intended it to be watched.)
We'll start with my preferred of the two: BUG (1975)
For those in attendance at my cabaret last month, you might remember that I made mention of this film's AMAZING tagline during the show. Ok, so i GOT IT WRONG AND PARAPHRASED A LITTLE, BUT STILL...close enough for jazz.
The movie, written by schlock maven William Castle, and based on a novel! called The Hephaestus Plague by Thomas Page, concerns "an earthquake which releases a strain of mutant cockroaches with the ability to start fires, which proceed to cause destructive chaos in a small town". Right.
So there's the basic idea. Are we all following so far? A pyromaniac strain of cockroach is released from the bowels of the earth after a quake, and they hitch rides in people's exhaust pipes.
They set a cat on fire (really weak special effects of fur burning while cat yowls are dubbed in), set a woman's blond bouffant hair-don't on fire (I'm still laughing about that one), and later on in the film's strange "mad scientist trying to study this new species" sub plot, they even learn how to spell, arranging themselves in threatening phrases to warn the mad scientist that his time is coming. Yes...I said it. They spell.
Another fun piece of trivia: The room number of the mad scientist's lab that he loses his mind in is room number 1408, which is also the number of the ill fated hotel room in Stephen King's short story, and then movie. I wonder if Stephen is a fan of this film too?
The film credits "Electronic Music by Charles Fox", which makes me chuckle, just the fact that it was billed as "Electronic Music". It serves the film well, though, providing just the kind of music that you would imagine a fire starting cockroach would creep around to...
The 70's were ripe with bugs gone wild flicks, from killer bees to tarantulas, but this one took it one step further than that, if at all possible. By the time that the over the top mutated bugs fly from their fault line into the air, you are gleefully right with them all, hoping that they will burn the whole village full of idiots. The sub plots are so funny to me, and I REALLY love the scene where a woman is planning a little party, and picks up her "cake-taker" (remember those?) and doesn't know that ...THERE IS A "BUG" ON THE BOTTOM OF IT!
The seventies style clothes and furniture are ample fodder for the bugs to burn, and I shrieked with delight when I watched the same beige/brown/yellow/orange floral print couch that we used to have in our living room growing up, burn up after a "bug" had torched it.
The scientific explanation is that these bugs basically ignite their own flatulence with the spark of rubbing their rear legs together. Yes, that's right. And the actors deliver these lines with a deadpan face. They deserve an Oscar, just for that. So these bugs run around town farting and lighting it on fire, and housewives, cats, floral print couches, bad beehive hair-don'ts, and cake-takers are laid to waste in their trail, while all the while the scientist goes crazier and crazier trying to find out what makes them tick.
As always, it takes a twisted nugget like me to really appreciate a film like this, but if you are just the slightest bit askew in the cranium department, please check this stinker out.
Speaking of what makes things tick...
"[to his dead rodent, which has been attacked by ticks]
Jarvis Tanner: Dude, you're all messed up! "
I first saw this stink bomb in high school. Ticks (1993) This film concerns "Teens camping in a northern California retreat are terrorized by mutant insects created by evil, polluting pot farmers, that will throw them into a terrifying fight for their lives!" Well the last thing you want to mess with is "evil, polluting pot farmers". Let alone "Evil, polluting pot farmers who create mutant insects".
Wouldn't you think that the "evil, polluting pot farmers" would be, I don't know. Just a little too mellow to take all of the trouble to "create mutant insects". Yes, they may pollute...may even be evil, but...I don't know..."Creating mutant Insects" seems like WAY too much effort for a pot farmer.
The cast features actors like Seth Green, Ami Dolenz, and Alfonso Ribeiro (Carlton from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air). And I have to say, however thin the plot is, the little tick critters are pretty creepy. Kind of remind me of the "face-huggers" from the Alien films, but still creepy. Maybe that is just because I am terrified of ticks in general...I find the idea of a foreign insect attaching itself to my skin and sucking my blood while possibly giving me a disease while i am unbeknownst to the whole thing, playing volleyball in the park near the woods where the "evil, polluting pot farmers" are stirring up tick soup just frightening beyond words.
Really, I can't even tell you much about the plot, because it escapes me. I was too busy squirming and thinking about ticks creeping around my back yard, smoking stogies and waiting for the next pink lump of flesh to latch on to. The film is middle of the road mid nineties fare, but scores big creep out points for me, just because..well...ticks are creepy, man. It's also funny to see "Carlton" from Fresh Prince play a hardened street thug. heh.
And as you might think, and as with many "mutant insect" movies, these ticks are bigger than average. They are about the size of your fist. Then there is (of course) one HUGE mamma-jamma tick which like scales a house at the end. (There is always a big one, isn't there?) The whole film, I kept thinking, "Man..they need to call Sigourney Weaver. She'd know what to do!"
So of these two creepy crawlie features, I side with the former, just based on the 70's kitch nostalgia factor alone. (And the "electronic music"). But both are wonderful additions to your "Nature Gone Wild" section of your movie collection.
Come on.
You have one of those, right?
No?
I'm the only one?
*sigh*
OK..those are the stinkers of the month.
Lessons learned: Stay away from fault lines, flatulent pyromaniac cockroaches, "evil, polluting pot farmers", summer camps outdoors...in fact, just stay indoors. Stay indoors and lather yourself up with DEET. Take a DEET bath, and whatever you do, don't let the bugs in.
SGS
