Mosquito

This is a film for people who, like me, have seen the art in really poor film-making. Some films really do make an art form of the tacky storyline and cheesy script....this is a classic of the genre. It is full of humorous references for the true horror junkie and doesn't pretend to be anything it isn't. A film like this could go two ways...it could either try to take itself seriously and unless masterfully achieved it'll fall flat on its face, or it can step back and take a good, long, honest look at what its really got going for it and try to pull it off with its tongue firmly in its cheek. With a little more audacity some of the deaths could have achieved cult status (one certainly springs to mind)...but hey, with such a vast array of acting talent (Gunnar Hansen of Texas Chainsaw fame being the shining light, and Steve Dixon as Parks also doing an admirable job) and plenty of hillbilly gags, the obligatory pervert-cum-hero this is a must watch for the truly awful film fan...if you liked this watch mutator; awful film, great deaths.

Jippie, the first movie I comment!

Anyways, this was one baaaaaad bad movie, in fact it was so hilariously bad it just cracked me up and I thought it was good! Okay the beginning is pretty slow. This had some poor acting too but what can you expect? I actually rented this movie because it stood in the news section, it had just been released on DVD, don't know what the crap it was doing in the news section. The first 30 minutes I regretted renting it but after a while it became very entertaining to watch in all of it's marvelous crappyness.

So what we got here is basically mutated mosquito's that sucked the blood of an alien that crashed into their swamp. These bastards are huge and they suck humans dry, even makes their eyes pop out! So we got this small gang of people, running, hiding, and fighting these things. A plus on this movie is that one of them is none other than good old Gunnar Hansen, better known as "Leatherface" from 1974's "Texas chainsaw massacre". He even makes a very goofy, incredibly bold reference to his old days as leatherface by grabbing a really huge chainsaw to fight mosquito's with, saying "I haven't held one of these babies in 20 years!" The mosquito's though are a bit of a gag, looks kind of plastic, though they could have been worse... I guess they are acceptable. Anytime the camera follows a mosquito if we look closely, we can see the wire it's hanging from, though this happens a lot in movies, even in some quality ones so we can't hold a grudge against this movie for that old mistake. Though when several mosquito's are seen chasing after the gang the effects are so poor, it's like 8 frames per second, tops, looks more like paper cut outs, flying across the screen, though more like lagging across the screen.

Also one thing in a scene that really astonished me. The main character couple stumbles upon a small boat that moves around. If I remember correctly you could hear mosquito buzzing from inside of it. So they lift it and it turns out to be a local park ranger instead. (WTF?)

One scene that had me cracking up was when the group hides underground and the black guy (my favorite character except for Gunnar) mentions he was in nam, to which Gunnar responds him too. Then the young guy hasn't really got anything so he just says "Yeah well I was in the boy-scouts!" To this comments everyone actually starts laughing in the movie! It's completely unsuiting, but it was actually kind of fun, one of the funniest things in this movie actually. I don't know, maybe I was exaggerating a bit, rating this a 7, but it's just because it's so damn funny to me! It's worth a look if you enjoy watching B-flicks.

"Mosquito" is a perfect example of a movie that's so bad it's good. I can't in all honesty give it any higher than a 5 because of the "so bad" issues, but the "so good" parts prop it up. Low budget, dire acting, ridiculous script. But with the exception of the flying skeeters, the low budget special effects are actually not that bad. And in spite of the low budget, you get the feeling that everyone involved gave it the old college try and threw everything they could into it. As a result, I literally applauded at a couple of scenes for their over-the-topness, and laughed my butt off through most of the film.

So yeah, as far as movie making goes, it was bad. But I enjoyed the dumb thing and was thoroughly entertained and movies are meant to entertain so in that, it succeeded. So, it's not so bad.

I consider myself fortunate to have caught "Mosquito" on a Sunday matinee. The opening scene depicts a huge mosquito smashing against a car windshield and the acting only gets worse from there. We get to see the "deputy" with a full beard in one scene lose the beard when the camera cuts back to him (stellar editing). We also get to see the main character who is the human incarnation of South Park's "Chef." My sides split when Gunnar Hansen (a.k.a. Letherface) picks up a chainsaw and says: "I haven't handled one of these things in 20 years....feels good." A commonly-used, extremely cheesy line is also: "..if I wasn't having such a bad day, I'd kill you." Anyway, go rent this, but you might have some trouble finding it (try a mom 'n pop video store).

I am torn on this movie but mostly leaning towards the side of loving it. The problem is the main reasons I love it are completely subjective, so I feel that I must still give an accurate technical rating of the movie.

I love this movie mainly because I remember seeing it many many times as a kid. In fact there was a time when my family and I would visit my grandma's house for a weekend at least once or twice a month and I would always sleep on the couch out in the main room, which meant I could watch tv until late. And for about a year, it seemed that every time we went, this movie was on cable as the late night movie, so I saw it probably about 15 times. I was young and so I wasn't really familiar with a lot of similar horror b films. At the time I remember thinking this was actually a serious scary film and not a campy b horror.

Years later now, I remembered the movie and wanted to see if I could find a copy of it. So I researched and got one and rewatched it. At first I thought this had to be a different film. The campiness of some of the park rangers reminded me of Wes Craven's "I Spit On Your Grave". But then quickly came in some of the really bad special effects and I knew this was the film I remembered.

So what does the film have going for it? Well it is definitely in the realm of those so bad its funny films. Although the movie does actually appear to attempt some humor which fails miserably. I think for me the best parts are the special effects, because they are so over the top and fake, yet also somewhat terrifying. I would say that all in all, the film feels like a homage to early zombie films both in its plot and special effects. Its definitely a film that anyone can sit down and enjoy for an evening if they just want something laugh at and be entertained by for an hour or two.