Big Bad Bugs

I laughed. I cried. I watched from behind the sofa with my mouth open. I was stunned.

Don't get me wrong, any amazement I felt at this movie was incredulity at the sheer amateurish antics of everyone involved with the making of this... this... I want to say film, but can't. A film has some sort of structure - a plot, acting, cinematics. But this ... thing... doesn't have anything.

I've seen better, deeper, better filmed and more thoughtful movies in the epic fails section on YouTube. This was made by a group of less talented members of a high school film club, scripted by one of their primary school siblings using an encyclopedia of clichés, and using clothes store mannequins so as not to pay real actors. Well, that is what it looks like, and I am probably doing down the film club here.

The acting is of the densest mahogany, the script is (very old) cheese from the very first word, the graphics are laughably bad attempts from the 1970's, the music hand-recorded from inside an elevator, the lighting performed with flashlights. And the director can only aspire to the greatness of Ed Wood, astonishingly making even the atrociously bad Uwe Boll look like an auteur in comparison.

The worst fifteen minutes of my life! And they brought it out in 3D as well! Amazing!

I am a sucker for creature features, especially when talking movies where the creatures are of gargantuan and monstrous sizes. However, most of those movies are laughable and poor, so it was with next to no expectations that I sat down to watch "Big Bad Bugs". So I would not be disappointed, but might actually be positively be pleasantly surprised. However, unlikely as that would be, given the rating the movie had scored on IMDb, I still decided to sit down and watch "Big Bad Bugs".

The special effects and CGI were questionable at best, let's just say that. The creatures were indeed looking like something out of a 1990s computer game. Yeah, they were that fake. And I must admit that I have never heard a scorpion squeal like a pig, nor having the ability to shake its stinger and tail to make it sound like a rattle snake. Or even monstrous spiders that sound like squealing pigs for that matter.

Now, the idea for the creatures was good enough, but it was so poorly executed on the screen that it was hard to take the monstrous creatures seriously.

The size of these creepy crawlers was explained that a scientist had opened a wormhole, and the creatures were milling through that wormhole into our world. Yeah, isn't it original?

And this is without a doubt the first time that I have ever seen a military guy take off his boots to cross a shallow stream of water. Seriously? Taking off the boots to walk through water, yeah, that was very military-like in spirit and training.

It should be said that the music score for "Big Bad Bugs" was actually quite alright. The music was well-fitting for the movie, and it was subtle enough to fit perfectly into the background yet still be outstanding enough to be noticed over dialogue and action on the screen.

The characters in the movie were quite generic and one-dimensional, which meant that the characters were fairly alike and only distinguishable by their outer appearance. And the script and storyline left little or no room for character Development.

"Big Bad Bugs" has a very straight forward storyline which is very easy to follow, and you can actually leave the room for some time to get something to eat, drink or whatever, and come back after a while and still be up to speed with what is going on. For better or worse.

If you like creature features, then trust me when I say that there are some far better choices available out there.

Sydney Gerber (Camden Toy), a very mad old scientist, opens a wormhole somewhere in Afghanistan, so giant scorpions can come out and kill all of his team. Dr William Marx (Jack Plotnick), a slightly mad young scientist, is sent with a team of soldiers to find Gerber and close the wormhole. Lieutenant Raiger (Ted Jonas) is determined to finish this mission soonest, because he and Marx are in love with the same woman. However, fighting various monsters and human enemies becomes an almost impossible mission that drags on and on.

'The Vortex - Beasts From Beyond' is an incredible movie. If you didn't see it, you wouldn't believe people release something like this. There is a giant plastic hornet and 2 talking (!) snakes. Probably becoming aware of how ridiculous everything would look, the makers added a lot of comedy by the relationship of Marx and Raiger who hate each other from the first moment, but have to continue working together on this mission. A few dialogs of these two characters are the only enjoyable thing in an otherwise horrifying flick.

My main reason for seeing 'Big Bad Bugs' was it being part of my on going/on and off "seeing low budget films out of curiosity" quest. Expectations were conflicted, with the premise being somewhat intriguing if silly and with the potential to be a guilty pleasure. With it not looking particularly good and the low rating, part of me was nervous, but saw it anyway with an open mind and with the intent to not take it too seriously.

Which unfortunately was very difficult to do, because everything was executed so amateurishly. Making it an ehausting and frustrating watch. There was a serious temptation to turn 'Big Bad Bugs' off very early on, but being a fair reviewer who always gives films etc a proper chance and never judges something without seeing the whole thing (find it very immature and why people do it and brag about it is lost on me) that temptation was resisted.

'Big Bad Bugs' really is as terrible as the low ratings and negative reviews have indicated, actually being worse than what the advertising made it look like. Wanted a ridiculous if fun guilty pleasure, got instead a worse than incompetent mess and one of the worst films seen in a long time.

Don't know where to begin criticising, but the extremely cheap production values would be a good starting point. The special effects for the goofy and far from menacing creatures are especially risible, with the haphazard editing close behind. The script is pure ham fisted cheese, the excessive repetition gets tiresome and it's all deadly dull.

Story-wise, it is ridiculous with a lot of draggy pacing, as a result of paper thin, often unevenful and over-stretched story-telling, and clumsy and far from tense or suspenseful action. The ending is far-fetched and completely fails to engage or excite. The performances are dreadful all round with bland and annoying characters, Ted Jonas especially only shows one emotion which is shouting.

Overall, terrible. 1/10

Wow. It's rare I can't find one single redeeming feature to provide more than one star, but this stinker deserves no better. I was hoping that Jack Plotnick's involvement would help, but although he's hysterical doing trans comedy, as a straight actor with absolutely nothing creative to work with, he was as useless and awful as the rest of the cast. Maybe if he played the character as Evie THAT would have saved this piece of dreck. At least then it would have been a comedy. The scientist fish out of water with the Marines scenario was I suppose meant to be amusing, but only came off as sad.

Instead, the only funny stuff was the basement-rate CGI. Honestly, they could have saved even more money by just having rubber toy monsters being moved by visible hands. I mean, we're talking "Birdemic"-type special effects here. Just dire.

And the military representation was plain insulting. INSULTING. It pissed me off, and I was never in the military. I can imagine how an actual SEAL feels about it. Apparently none of the minuscule budget was spent on research. Into ANYTHING.

This truly is a bad film. Bad script, bad "effects," bad acting, bad photography, bad direction, just bad bad bad. I was really hoping for humor. But that was bad, too. Avoid this one at all costs.

Jack Plotnick...I hope the check didn't bounce.