Movie Reviews

The Bigger Picture:  Horror fans, take note: Don’t expect a gross-out gorefest about mutant killer insects, regardless what the title and marketing might suggest. Instead, this is a genre-spliced hybrid of woman-in-danger thriller, lonely-hearts romance, psychological drama and dark-dark comedy. All that crossbreeding makes Bug an odd animal.

Beaten up by life (and her hubby), lovely Judd now lives in a rundown rural motel and waitresses at a local watering hole. There she meets eccentric drifter Shannon, who’s looking for a friend and a place to stay. Jeez, how many red flags does she need?

Ex-con Connick tracks her down and wants to rekindle their Punch-and-Judy relationship, but she kicks him out and kicks it with Shannon instead. Things quickly get buggy as Shannon starts finding aphids everywhere, even inside his own body. See, he’s a war vet, thinks the Army conducted experiments on him and...Well, you get the idea. For reasons not entirely clear, Judd joins him in the delusion and helps him cover their roach-motel room with foil, No-Pest Strips and bug zappers.

Judd and Shannon give bold performances—fully invested as they become “infested”—and bare much more than their souls. But they and director William Friedkin (The Exorcist) can’t overcome the inherent theatricality, including ranting monologues and overwrought climax.

I kept wondering how the same material would’ve been handled by director David Cronenberg, whose unsettling Naked Lunch adaptation and horrific remake of The Fly also featured disturbed characters with insect obsessions.

This Bug has some bite but, unlike Cronenberg’s creations, never burrows under your skin.

The 180—a Second Opinion:  As Bug and Vacancy (and countless others) have shown, one should never, ever spend the night in a small-town motel. So, if your summer travel plans include such lodging, you’ll probably wanna forego this freak show. Between these movies and the Hostel franchise, is Hollywood trying to slaughter the tourism industry?