1996’s Joe’s Apartment had CGI cockroaches that sang and danced in extensively choreographed numbers. And yet I was more surprised when the things spell out the last name of Bradford Dillman’s character in 1975 horror film Bug. I hate to inform the filmmakers, but it had the exact opposite effect of what they intended. I wasn’t scared in the least. Instead, I was doubled over from laughing so hard.
This occurs in the second, and weirder, half of the picture. Let’s start with the first half, which at least has some action in it.
It begins in a church during an earthquake. The floor actually undulates like ocean waves, which was impressive, even if it left me wondering if such a phenomenon could ever happen in a real quake. That said, I was more impressed with this sequence than anything in the effects-laden The Quake.
After this scene, the characters disperse like…well, roaches. A father and son are going home in their pickup truck when it suddenly stops. The father chastises the son for flooding the engine, which confused me, as I don’t think that could result in the white smoke pouring out of the tailpipe. There is enough of it to form its own cloud system. Even more surprising is the truck then explodes.
A previously unseen species of roaches released by the earthquake caused that explosion, as well as several more to come. These things look like those fossils of trilobites, and have appendages on their undersides they can strike together like flints. They deliver an electric shock when picked up, meaning evolution resulted in something with its own built-in joy buzzer. Add in its own whoopie cushion and these things could be the life of the party.
One of the things I struggled with when watching the movie is, even taking into account the fire-making ability, I still couldn’t fathom how these things were making vehicles explode. For that matter, I was a little fuzzy on why they are attracted to vehicle engines to begin with. Maybe they just like the warmth. It is revealed the things live on ashes, but I just checked under the hood of my car and, while not pristine, the engine looks to not have much ash on it.
Even more confusing to me is the discovery roughly halfway through the runtime that these things will perish naturally. In addition to being slow-moving and unable to reproduce, they can’t adjust to the low pressure of the surface atmosphere, so they eventually explode. If I never again see a roach’s insides exploding outwards in slow-motion, it will be too soon.
But why would the air pressure have been greater underground? One scientist speculates the roaches lived for eons in a cave well-below the surface, a microcosm of just them and their food sources. But I don’t think the air pressure would be incredibly high in such a situation. I mean, it isn’t like they are in the ocean at that depth. I could be wrong (and I know I am overthinking this), but something about this doesn’t scan.
The movie then downshifts for its second half, when it focuses almost exclusively on Dillman and his attempt to ensure the survival of the invaders. The death of his wife seems to be the motivation, though he seemed to have an interest in a preservation effort even before that happens. I would have thought he would have had even more motivation to wipe these things out once they have killed his wife, but what do I know.
Cross-breeding with common household cockroaches results in the hyper-intelligent bugs that eventually spell out his last name as well as “WE LIVE”. This was too much for me. I only wish the roaches from Bug could be further crossbred with the singing roaches from Joe’s Apartment, and then we might have insect dance routines in increasingly complex geometric progressions, perhaps as fractals growing into patterns of infinite complexity, pushing bad taste into hitherto unexplored territory.
Dir: Jeannot Swarcz
Starring Bradford Dillman, Joanna Miles, Richard Gilliland
Watched on Shout Factory blu-ray