Bug Buster

Down-right dumb flick about a teenage girl (Katherine Heigl) who moves with her parents to a lakeside town that is about to be infested with killer mutant cockroaches. The cockroaches finally start to slowly take over the town with gruesome killings and it is up to the town to bring in silly exterminator Randy Quaid. Another low-budget horror flick that has a sick humor and characters less interesting than paint drying. Former television alums James Doohan (of "Star Trek" fame) and Bernie Koppell (of "The Love Boat") have prevalent roles. Heigl and actress Meredith Salenger are nice to look at, but they are sub-par performers and their beauty cannot compensate for this disgusting bomb. Turkey (0 stars out of 5).

This is one of those movies that leaves you wondering, with a cast like this why was it so bad, or why does a cast like this feel the need to appear in a film this bad.

Out of all the best known names James Doohan, George Takei and Denis Quaid, you figure they surely don't need the money, and if they did do they need it this badly.

This film can't seem to make up it's mind what it wants to be, if it's meant to be a straight, creature horror flick, it fails miserably, and if it's meant to be a tongue in cheek spoof, it fails miserably as well, in fact the only good thing about this film is the consistency, it starts of really bad, continues to be really bad in the middle, and, shooting a slight hole in my own theory, it actually gets worse at the end.

I kept expecting James Doohan to revert to a Scots accent and Say "Ya canna break the law of insects Cap'n' and perhaps it wouldn't have been so bad if he had, it did make a change to her him with, what I assume was his natural voice, for those of you who didn't know he is in fact Canadian, and George Takei as an insect scientist OH MY GOD! (this needs to be said like Janice out of Friends) Another thing I couldn't handle was the size of the town and the women, before you all go crazy let em explain. I live in a tiny little village in England, when compared to the size of the States would probably be of equivalent size to the town this is set in, and most of the women in my village are either over 60 or under 6 or married with kids, we have no incredibly sexy blonde scientist, no beautiful single brunettes and certainly no gorgeous nymphomaniacs taking the men skinny dipping at night. To think I've met people who've had really good ideas for films if only they'd had the chance, and to see a film like this just confirms there is no justice in the world, well in the film industry anyway. If you don't like bugs you'll hate this film, come to think of it even if you love bugs you'll probably hate it.

See, when I go to my local used tape store, I write down a bunch of titles and check 'em out on imdb. I got Bug Buster on the basis of the seriously negative reviews, and, by and large, it was pretty bad.

The big problem is that Lorenzo Wossname that directed this bumph doesn't know how to move his actors around on a set and have them speak clearly and distinctly into the camera, moving their hands when required to convey emotion-OK, OK, the guy can't direct for squat. The plot creaks when it moves, and the only original thought in the entire movie is turning Bernie Kopell into a love god.

And, yeah, the Quaid sucks on toast. And, yeah, the Julie Brown character is even worse. But, dammit, Meredith Salenger overcomes the lousy direction, and her last scene is really disturbing and convincing, to the extent that I replayed it just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating from too much Diet Dr. Pepper. And the Mama Bug at the end wasn't half bad, for having been constructed at a total cost of a new Kia Sephia with a crappy radio.

So, frankly, I wish it'd been a lot worse. If I lay down five bucks for a used tape, I want it to bite majorly. I want it to make Night of Horror look like The Innocents. I want to strengthen my belief in the futility of human endeavor.

This wasn't bad enough. Sure, it's a mess, both completely unbelievable and with every plot twist and virtually every line stolen from somebody else. But it's nicely shot, Johnny Legend is in it and is pretty good, Meredith Salenger overcomes an earlier speech she was forced to make at gunpoint about how nice her boobs are and does something she can be proud of, and the Mama Bug provided an OK finish.

Rats. Oh, well. On the same trip I also copped Pink Motel, and I have high hopes.

For people that really enjoy trashy low budget horror movies that don't take themselves serious, there is definitely something here. However Bug Busters is too inconsistent to fall in the cult classic or hidden gem category.

Rany Quaid as gun-tooting, ex-military pest exterminator is on fire, unfortunately he only appears on the scene in the last 25 minutes (besides some funny commercials), the rest of the cast is a bit hit and miss, especially an early performance from Katherine Heigl. The tone is inconsistent here while some actors go for camp, others play it straight, it's neither here nor there until the movie finally commits for the third act.

Don't expect too many memorable effects either, the practical effects look dated and where not really great back when this was released either. So I recommend it to trash fans, but you might want to fast forward quite a bit during the first our.

Hi, Everyone,

I was the keyboard player in the band "Trailer Park Trash" in the movie. Fortunately they misspelled my last name in the movie credits. No, just joking. It was a fun experience (making the movie was fun, watching it was a little excruciating).

Johnny Legend and Melba Toast and I had performed lots of times at various Country Music spots in L.A. over the years of the 80s and 90s. We performed for the producer at some of his Christmas parties. He decided to use us for the scene in the lodge. It was very very hot when we did our scene. It was over 100 outside and hotter inside. The air conditioning had to be turned off while we were filming.

It was nice to work with the cast and crew. The movie turned out pretty bad but still fun to watch if you have friends over on a Saturday night and you want to laugh at the screen. Maybe the perfect DVD to get for your mother-in-law or your wife's attorney.

The bugs that attacked Johnny Legend during our musical numbers were very real. Not some special effect. There was a "bug wrangler" on the set. They are some kind of cockroach from South America or somewhere and they are as long as a grown man's index finger and as fat as a man's thumb.

I would like to say something really good about the movie but I will have to come back if I can think of something.

Tom Willett