Reading an old issue of UK film mag Empire,I Checked the "archive" pages,and spotted a review for William Castle's final "shock Horror." Previously having only seen his famous House on Haunted Hill,I decided that it was the perfect time to see Castle build his ant (bug) kingdom.
The plot:
Shaken by being caught in the middle of an earthquake, a town finds itself surrounded by mutant bugs,who can unleash fire that murders animals and people.Thanks to the low air pressure on the Earth's surface most of the bugs die. Wanting to learn more about the bugs, Prof. James Parmiter keeps some of them alive in storage units. Taking them to an isolated location for research, Parmiter begins to find his own mind bugging him.
View on the film:
Sliding out of Thomas Page's book,the screenplay by Page and producer/cameo actor William Castle slime's between a Disaster Movie and a creepy Sci-Fi Creature Feature. Setting the bed bugs on fire,the writers send the critters flying into a deliciously bonkers atmosphere,where the stupidity folks usually show in this genre is given an extra push by the people of the town getting in situations with the bugs that is all their own fault! Leaving behind some of Castle's famous "shock & awe" antics for the second half,the writers lock James Parmiter in for an unexpectedly eerie,slow-burn Sci-Fi Horror,that takes advantage of the "last man on earth" setting to turn the bugs (who are given sex scenes!) into objects of paranoia,closing in on James Parmiter
Grabbing handfuls of the bugs, director Jeannot Szwarc and cinematographer Michel Hugo wrap the film in Charles Fox's nerve- shredding synch score moving in time with the brash primary colours of the bug attacks. Biting into everything (including a poor cat) Szwarc makes everyone be hilariously stupid,with even the most basic safety options (no gloves!) being something that does distract from the unfolding disaster. Stuck in a small room on his own, Bradford Dillman gives an excellent performance as James Parmiter,whose closeness with the bugs Dillman uses to sink Parmiter into a pit of madness,as he becomes a bug for the bugs.
Bug
1975
Action / Horror / Mystery / Sci-Fi / Thriller
Plot summary
An earthquake releases a strain of mutant cockroaches with the ability to start fires, which proceed to cause destructive chaos in a small town. The studies carried out by scientist James Parmiter, however, reveal an intent with much more far-reaching consequences.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Top cast
Movie Reviews
It's A Bugs Life.
different than your average attacking insect movie
Despite the lurid exploitation title, this is for the most part a grim and weird semi-art-house sci fi movie, more akin to PHASE IV than something like THEM or even THE BIRDS.
BUG benefits greatly from the intense and nervously twitchy central performance of BRADFORD DILLMAN as the scientist who goes off the deep end after his wife is set ablaze by the title critters. The insect photography is well-done and the soundtrack whenever the bugs make an appearance is a prototypically 70's art-house exploitation hybrid--a series of scratches and electronic pops--but it becomes unnervingly effective. The scenes near the end where Bradford Dillman starts performing bizarre experiments upon the BUGs and establishing some sort of contact with them remain potent and eerie and all of the scenes where he finds them crawling loose in his farmhouse are disturbing; If you are willing to forgive some poor special effects near the climax you wont be disappointed by Bug. It is a genuinely creepy movie, one which manages to conjure up a disturbing atmosphere of heat and paranoia and eventually crumbling insanity. Worth a look.
Not as expected
BUG (1975) is far from your usual monster movie, featuring as it does a plague of pyrotechnic cockroaches which are released from the ground by an earthquake and proceed to cause scorching mayhem in an American town. It was written and produced by William Castle - his last feature before his death at 63 - and directed by the guy who made JAWS 2. Bradford Dillman, later to appear in Joe Dante's PIRANHA, is the dedicated scientist trying to solve the mystery surrounding random fires, little realising that prehistoric bugs are responsible.
As a huge fan of the 'animal attack' genre I was excited about seeing this, but the end result is only so-so. There are a couple of good, scary set-pieces in which the roaches latch onto and burn their victims, but other than that it's quite subdued and atypical of its type. No swarming or sieges here. In the second half it becomes more of a 'mad scientist' tale focusing on Dillman's growing obsession, which isn't very cinematic or suspenseful. The ending is great, but it takes too long to get there, and there are long stretches where it simply doesn't hold the viewer's attention as it should.