Here’s a list of skin-crawling bad bug movies designed to make you scream
It’s easy to figure out why insects make many people’s skin crawl. Bugs, those small, alien, herd-like fiends that fear us more than we fear them but nevertheless find their ways into our secret spots, mutating and morphing and breeding and biting and generally making our lives miserable.
Horror movies have exploited our hard-wired entomological revulsion for almost a century, their physical representation adapting (like insects adapt) to the times and mirroring our innate cultural fear of “the other.”
This morning, this writer stepped into the shower only to be greeted by one of those vulgar, house centipedes that almost look like vermin when they gallop away from things they deem to be a threat. Now, these creatures are harmless and normally I try to usher insect invaders back outside to start fresh lives free of human domesticity. But there’s something about these critters that just makes me… snap.
And we’re sure that you too have a sort of bug that makes you scream.
Here then, in honor of my centipede run-in this morning, are 10 random horror and science fiction films that exploit our fear of bugs, whether giant, radiated, super-intelligent or, in the cases of at least two of the films, invasive of our very genetic make-ups.
Get the Raid and reveal your own favorite bad bug movies in the comments section below…
Bugs
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Un Chien Andalou (1929)
The first "official" surrealist film, this hallucinatory short is directed by the great Luis Bunuel, working in collusion with the "father of surrealism", artist Salvadore Dali. Essentially a wave of weird, unrelated imagery, many cite the "eyeball slit" as the most unsettling image. But the "ants from the hand" sequence is just as icky.
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Them! (1954)
Classic and influential '50s mega-monster horror movie that still packs a punch. James Whitmore faces off against a hive of radiated, King-size ants that eat kids and whoever else gets in their paths. Even the now-dated special effects are cool and weird and the suspense rarely lets up.
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Phase IV (1974)
More ants emerge to plague mankind in this visionary British science shocker from Hitchcock colleague and title designer Saul Bass, the only feature he ever directed. We wish he made more. This creepy and hauntingly shot film sees experimental ants rising up and gaining super intelligence, with a central consciousness that makes them unstoppable.
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Bug (1975)
Underrated and nihilistic shocker from Jaws 2 director Jeanot Szwarc and the final film produced by legendary horror movie showman William Castle. In it, actor Bradford Dillman plays a scientist who unleashes a fire-starting breed of killer cockroach into the world. He self destructs, many people die and revolting mutant cockroaches crawl and fly and incinerate everything. Terrifying final shot...
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Kingdom of the Spiders (1977)
Okay, we know spiders are not insects but close enough! The torrent of tarantulas that scuttle across the screen in this William Shatner vehicle made me squirm as a kid and still do. Spiders dosed with DDT rebel and devour the residents of Arizona. Terrifying film.
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Empire of the Ants (1977)
Yet another ant entry on this list, this Bert I. Gordon big beast blockbuster sees the saucy Joan Collins and a pack of her pals stranded on an island with a legion of mutant ants, some realized as papier mache puppets and some as badly blue-screened captured ants. Either way this film is fun, sometimes scary, sort of nihilistic and not a total slam on the H.G. Wells source novel.
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Creepshow (1982)
You want roaches? George A. Romero, Stephen King and Tom Savini deliver them by the bucket in this classic anthology. The fifth and final story "They're Creeping Up on You" sees E.G. Marshall's capitalist swine Upson Pratt do battle with imaginary roaches before real ones erupt from his throat. If this one doesn't make your skin crawl...it's on too tight!
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Ticks (1993)
One of the few trash horror bright spots of the 1990s this teens vs. pot bugs video store favorite sees a gaggle of kids running afoul of the revolting, titular mutant parasites. Worth it just to see poor Clint Howard's face erupt in bloody, stomach-churning instectile insanity.
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The Fly (1986)
Director David Cronenberg's heart wrenching, gag-inducing tragedy is equal parts remake of the '50s classic and contemporary, special effects fueled adaptation of Franz Kafka's classic novella The Metamorphosis. Jeff Goldblum gives the performance of his career as the doomed Seth Brundle, a scientist whose experiments in matter teleportation are sabotaged by a housefly. The mother of all bug virus body horror movies.
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Bite (2015)
Canadian slime opera BITE sees a girl (Elma Begovic) getting bit by some sort of critter and in turn mutating into a giant she-bug. Cronenberg is clearly the central influence of this gooey body horror opus, one that features all manner of revolting insectile special effect. You'll never eat caviar again (if you ever did, that is).
