1328. Bug (1975)

Starring: Bradford Dillman, Joanna Miles, Richard Gilliland

Director: Jeannot Szwarc

Running Time: 96 mins

Bug is an American film about a swarm of cockroaches that can set things on fire that are unleashed by a powerful earthquake in a remote town. Although their threat is temporarily abated, a scientist soon discovers that they are pose a greater danger than anyone could have imagined.

By their very nature, B-movie horrors are almost always awful. However, there’s no excuse for a film like Bug to be both awful, and so draining to watch. A film this short and stupid shouldn’t take all your effort to watch. It’s tedious and incomprehensible from start to finish, it’s got some awful performances and pathetic attempts at tension, all of which came together to make a thoroughly boring watch that I just couldn’t care less about.

The main reason that I hate Bug so much is because it takes itself so seriously. As we all know, the B-movie genre can be hugely entertaining if it falls into the so-bad-it’s-good category. However, when a film genuinely thinks it’s the next Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, but doesn’t have the production value or talent to match that, it’s a real drag.

So, the biggest problem of all comes in the story, which is near impossible to follow through the whole movie. For one, it’s so preposterous, but on the most underwhelming level. The cockroaches literally just cause a few sparks when they attack, and that’s it. If the concept was a little more spectacular, and the cockroaches were given something more threatening to do, maybe there could have been some entertainment (but I still doubt it).

The directing’s also pretty awful. The most painful thing to watch here are the terrible attempts to create tension and drama, something very necessary when you’ve got such a low budget. Szwarc’s idea of tension, however, is pointing the camera at a cockroach and zooming in a bit, and then playing some horrible sci-fi techno music in the background. He does it about ten times throughout the movie, and it just never works.

Finally, the performances are totally laughable. Apart from the fact that it’s pretty hard to remember who everyone is playing, considering the characters come and go at random times and the acting is so unmemorable, some of the line delivery here is absolutely atrocious, right up there with The Room, Troll 2 and all the worst movies you know and hate.

So, overall, Bug is a terrible film. I hated it, and you shouldn’t watch it. Now I’m going to get 96 minutes of my life back.