Un villaggio americano viene colpito da una scossa sismica che ha il suo epicentro presso una fattoria nella quale si forma una profonda fenditura. Quando, finite le scosse, i cittadini tornano alle proprie attività, misteriosi incendi si sviluppano in luoghi diversi. Il Prof. James Parmiter, notata resistenza di strani insetti che emettono vampate di fuoco e provocano la morte di diverse persone, si trasferisce nella fattoria incriminata per meglio studiarli. Vivendo tutto solo, riesce a dimostrare che si tratta di una specie vecchissima e vivente nelle profondità della Terra, liberati dal terremoto, quelli che lui chiamerà "Parmitera Hephestus", sono insetti che posseggono capacità eruttive a causa della differenza di pressione atmosferica cui sono stati sottoposti. Il professore piombando progressivamente in una specie di pazzia, ottiene anche la riproduzione dei pericolosi animaletti che, dopo averlo ucciso, ritornano negli abissi dai quali sono stati violentemente tratti.
W**5
The Picture You See With Your Eyes Closed.
When an earthquake hits a small Californian town, a large crack in a field opens up releasing thousands of prehistoric arsonist cockroaches. These mutations are able to cause fire by rubbing together their cerci, and waste no time at all in causing fires all over town. A scientist, James Parmiter, discovers that the bugs will soon die out as they can't survive in the low air pressure on the Earth's surface, but sadly for Parmiter, one of the bugs last victims is his wife, Carrie. It's fair to say that the death of his wife has an adverse effect on the man's sanity, and when he decides to try and mate one of the last surviving fire-roaches with a common cockroach, the effects are horrific.Bradford Dillman is great fun to watch as James Parmiter, he starts out as a well-intentioned loving husband and slowly descends into a clichéd mad scientist, it's brilliant. He gives by far the best performance in the film and in the second half, we are almost exclusively in his company alone. Dillman spent most of his career on TV, but did appear in several well-known movies including Escape from the Planet of the Apes, The Iceman Cometh, The Way We Were, The Enforcer and another two animal attack/creature feature films in 1978, The Swarm and Piranha. Although this is clearly Dillman's film, there is pretty good support from Joanna Miles, Richard Gilliland, Jamie Smith-Jackson, Alan Fudge, Jesse Vint and Patty McCormack who is best known for playing the evil little girl in The Bad Seed from 1956.Bug was directed by Jeannot Szwarc, a director that had mostly directed TV shows and TV movies up to that point, including 19 episodes of Night Gallery. I think he did a great job on Bug, it's well paced, the close-up shots of the bugs are fantastic, it's reasonably creepy and tense at times, and he directed Dillman in one of his best ever performances. Szwarc's next theatrical feature was the hugely underrated Jaws 2 three years later, a film I feel is very nearly as good as its brilliant predecessor. He spent the next decade making films of varying quality from the very good Somewhere in Time to the excruciatingly bad Supergirl. In recent years he's had a lot of success directing several episodes of shows such as JAG, The Practice, Without a Trace, Heroes, Cold Case, Smallville, Fringe, Grey's Anatomy and Bones.Bug is based on the Thomas Page novel "The Hephaestus Plague", and the screenplay was co-written by Page and the film's producer, William Castle. Bug was the last ever film that Castle was involved with, he died of a heart-attack a few years later. Castle has gained legendary status over the years for his films such as House on Haunted Hill, The Tingler, 13 Ghosts, Mr Sardonicus and The Old Dark House. The music is mostly excellent by Charles Fox, though I did feel it was slightly overbearing in some scenes, and Michel Hugo's cinematography is nice. It's also probably worth noting that the Parmiter house in the film is the very same set that was used for the interior of the Brady home in the TV show The Brady Bunch. The effects are a little hit-and-miss, the bugs toward the very end of the film look pretty poor, but there's also a scene very early on where the bugs burn a cat to death, it's extremely realistic looking and some viewers may find it a little distressing.In 2013, Paramount, using the Paramount Catalog label re-released dozens of films that had previously been released but had gone out-of-print, Bug was part of those releases. All of the Paramount Catalog films I've picked up so far have had no extras, have been very cheap to buy and have had excellent picture quality, Bug is no different. The picture quality is nice all the way through, it goes a little grainy during very dark scenes, but it also looks absolutely stunning at times as well. For what is a very fun film, very cheap to buy and with excellent picture quality, it's well worth picking up, especially if you're a big animal attack/creature feature fan like I am. There's English subtitles available. Just a word of warning, the disc is region 1 and you will need a region free player in order to watch it.
B**H
Great
Great fiklm
D**H
Good bug film
Good bug film
D**M
Loved this film since the first time I saw it ...
Loved this film since the first time I saw it many, many moons ago. Still great after all these years.
L**N
They creep they crawl they KILL!!
Always creeped me out as a child and now as an adult! Those filthy killer bugs! They creep they crawl they KILL!! Scary movie in the way that it is so odd! Cold and dark! One mans obsession with the unknown. J Counsell
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