Anonymous Andy (Minus_The_Beer) Killer roaches encroach on a sleepy, god-fearing rural California town in the aptly titled "Bug." From producer William Castle, "Bug" is everything you think it is, nothing more, nothing less. When a quake makes the Earth shake, bugs come from under rugs, lurch towards church and build fires under car tires. It's up to a local entomologist (Bradford Dillman) to sweat over the threat. As he discovers, they can neither breed nor spread seed, but the constant threat of fire proves to be dire.OK, I'll stop."Bug" is very much akin to the giant bug genre that swept the nation in the '50s, right down to its easy and breezy concept. These little firestarters wreak havoc across town while its residents struggle to get a handle on things. Dillman is game, as always, while his supporting cast includes Joanna Miles and Patricia McCormack, both of whom do a good job alternating between being creeped out and shrieking at the top of their lungs. While the pace doesn't exactly catch fire, it never feels dull of plodding, leading up to a thoroughly ridiculous yet inspired finale. The roach effects are adequate and will probably go a long way to get under the skin of anyone who fears the creepy crawlers, even today. It's very much the sort of movie you watch on a lazy Saturday afternoon when you just want to shut off your brain. "Bug" deserves its place alongside other semi-forgotten b-fare like "Frogs" and "The Swarm." Fun facts: Director Jeannot Szwarc would go on to direct the slightly more competent "Jaws 2," while keen viewers might notice portions of the set were recycled from "The Brady Bunch."

morrison-dylan-fan 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 ParmiterGrabbing 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.

moonspinner55 Final project from famed movie producer William Castle is, sadly, a slapdash insect affair. Based on the book "The Hephaestus Plague" by Thomas Page, who also penned the screenplay with help from Castle, the chills start after an earthquake rocks a small community, bringing mutant roaches up from the earth. The bugs are satisfyingly disgusting, causing fire, panic, and one hysterical death on the former "Brady Bunch" set at Paramount. Aficionados of gross-out cinema will up the rating a notch, while purveyors of camp will enjoy the wooden performances by Bradford Dillman as a local professor and Joanna Miles as his wife. Lots of close-ups of scaly legs and bug guts, yet the production values are disappointingly cheapjack, a depressing reminder of far better days at the Castle horror factory. *1/2 from ****

Coventry With ecological horror being one of my personal favorite trends in 70's cinema, I cannot believe it took me until now to check out this awesome creature-feature called "Bug", scripted by no less than horror maestro William Castle ("House on Haunted Hill", "Homicidal") and directed by Jeannot Szwarc ("Jaws 2", "Enigma"). The film bathes in that typically irresistible 70's atmosphere like I've rarely seen it before. We're talking about an atmosphere of grotesque, paranoia and apocalypse - all of it inflicted by spontaneous and inexplicable ecological phenomena. In this case a small Californian desert town becomes overrun with uncanny cockroaches after a severe earthquake during a period of drought. Not ordinary cockroaches, mind you, but indestructible and rapidly multiplying little monsters that hold the ability to set fire to material things as well as living beings! The fierce insects feed on ashes, spread across the desert area at an incredibly fast rate and quickly become responsible for a large death-toll among the increasingly hysterical population. Local entomologist Jim Parmiter faces the hardest challenge in his career trying to develop a method to exterminate this new breed of lethal bugs. Unlike a lot of its contemporary colleagues, which are just plain cheesy and laugh-inducing, "Bug" is actually an engaging and at times even scary motion picture. The suspense unfolds gradually, as more and locals find their houses infested with the nasty little fire-bugs, and certain death sequences are truly unforgettable, like the spontaneously combusting housewife in her kitchen. The tone of the film drastically changes in the last forty or so minutes, since Bradford Dillman isolates himself with in order to investigate the insects' weaknesses and we exclusively follow up on his progress. At that point "Bug" becomes a little less exciting and action-packed but definitely not less fascinating to look at. The special effects are more than adequate enough considering the time of release and the budget they had to work with (especially knowing William Castle) and the acting performances are above average as well. The remote filming locations contribute a lot the atmosphere and I just can't get over how brilliant and imaginative the premise of pyromaniac insects in fact is! Apparently I'm not the most reliable source when it comes to recommending 70's creature features, since I even worship junk movies like "Squirm" and "Empire of the Ants", but I presume that "Bug" will appeal to a very wide range of open-minded horror fanatics.