Creepy Crawlies

Introduction

When movies about zombies were reinvigorated with 2002’s “28 Days Later”, we were treated to an onslaught of zombie flicks. They broke off from traditional interpretations, and broke new ground in terms of plot, setting and style. Over the years, Zombie films have become their own sub-genre and are no longer just a type of monster figured in horror movies. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for bugs and insects. 

In the past thirty years, movies about our little creepy, slimy, squishy, hairy and dangerous crawlers have been rare. Certainly in the 50’s and 60’s, as special effects advanced and the risk of nuclear was imminent, there were a plethora of films about giant or mutated insects and bugs wreaking havoc. Then that genre of sorts died out. These days, films that focus on insects, bugs and rodents are few and far between, only popping up in the horror or thriller genre on the rare occasion. Why is that? 

Is it because they are just minor players in the movie monster world? Do we not care to see them? Or do today’s filmmakers only want to tackle the creatures in film if they know they can get it right? The latter is probably more the case as it’s common for movies about creepy crawlies to be B grade affairs, or over-hyped and over-produced films that don’t pay off. In this series of reviews you will see a few examples of both. But creepy crawlies as films aren’t all bad, as there are a couple of solid exceptions also included in this series of reviews. 

I realise movies about bugs, insects and rodents are not for everyone. Such living, breathing things as mice, rats, spiders and cockroaches can cause people to jump from the floor to a chair, or run out of a house. There are legitimate phobias for each of these creatures, which include such complicated names as Katsaridaphobia (fear of cockroaches), Musophobia (fear of rats and mice) and of course, Arachnophobia (fear of spiders), which is the title of perhaps the best film to be reviewed in this series. 

Despite humans being at least 100 times or more bigger in size than all of these tiny creatures, some of them can do enough damage to you to either make you extremely sick or die in some cases. Ticks are only about two millimetres in length but get one on you and it will confidently burrow itself into your skin and lay eggs that will hatch in your flesh! If that sounded bad enough, the Ticks in the film reviewed here, aptly called “Ticks” mutate and grow to the size of rats. Speaking of which, rats are a common pest in the world, and one of the most common fears. No one likes them, unless they keep them as pets of course and that pastime explored  in the movie “Willard”, where rats as pets is taken way too far.

And as much as we might fear these creepy crawlies, and as fearless and persistent as they may seem to us, I’m sure they are more scared of us than we are of them. In reality we’d like to think so but with the films reviewed here and the insect, bug or rodent they portray, most of them have no fear of humans at all. This is visualised in scary ways, as well as humours ways. And I’ve included a couple of more, lighter and comedic films in this list, including “Mousehunt” and “Joe’s Apartment” which pair mice and cockroaches respectively off against people just for laughs.  

And is there any morals or messages in these films to be learned? Maybe, depending on how you look at it. With most of the films where the people are in danger from their creepy crawly co-star, many characters will fall by the way before the hero defeats the culprit and overcomes their fears. And the examples on show here all come down to two lessons in different ways; don’t mess with nature, and don’t underestimate creatures that are smaller than you. Even if size does matter in the animal world we know in reality, when it comes to the movies size does matter, especially in the case of movies like “Mimic”, which you can discover here. 

Well, I’ve said enough. Sit back and enjoy nine short reviews about an assortment of films ranging from the silly to the scary, the fun to the frightening and the surprisingly good to the expectedly bad. And be warned, that side effects of reading these reviews and ultimately watching these films may cause you to feel itchy and check your bed before going to sleep tonight. I take no responsibility if any spiders, slugs, rats, mice, cockroaches, ticks, bats or bees cross your path. 

After all, they’re all around all the time aren’t they? Maybe now, you’ll be on the lookout… 

Creepy Crawly films reviewed;

Arachnophobia 
Slither 
Joe's Apartment
Mousehunt
The Swarm
Bats
Ticks
Mimic
Willard

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