Burrowing up from the success of the B-movies of the 1950s (and derivative of Godzilla), bugs — be they plagued by radiation, aliens, or simply massive — were here to destroy cities and plague tiny American towns for decades to come. Hitchcock and Spielberg would make animal B-Movies prime time, with their additions of The Birds and Jaws respectively, elevating a genre that was famous for its dodgy effects and intoxicated-on-bug-spray acting.
It’s interesting to see the parallels between the man vs beast subgenre and that of the deadly plagues written in the Bible. As horrors inflicted on the disbelievers, these films utilized the animal kingdom as a sign of the end times, with prime ’70s examples like Frogs and The Killer Snakes as direct references to said plagues. Its religious subtexts play into the perfect-slice-of-life small town ideals once more, as helpless farm folk and nuclear families could only do their best to survive for being unfaithful or messing with God’s creation.
The machinations and mistakes of lazy governments and corporations above them also prove to be a defining quality of the ‘bug movie,’ with institutions at fault for dumping chemical waste, disturbing mines, exposing nuclear radiation, and so on being one of the political and environmental forces of the man vs beast subgenre. Bugs in cinema can even be used in idealistic and inspirational ways, serving as an example of communal cooperation and utilitarianism. The following films center on bugs in various ways, while retaining their focus on the creepy, crawly insects that make us all squirm.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
8 Antz (1998)
Dreamworks
Released back to back with rival A Bug’s Life, Antz (Dreamworks’ very first feature) pitches Woody Allen as an ant alongside Sylvester Stallone and Sharon Stone. This will however always be a poor man’s version of A Bug’s Life, with a wobbly tone and an unfriendly uncanny valley approach to insects that makes our skin crawl. Pre-flagship Shrek, Dreamworks was quite visibly finding its feet with visually impressive but entirely missed target audiences via Antz, and their following bible epics. Antz was rushed into production at the time to pip Bug’s Life on release. It feels equally rushed, with Allen being an incredibly strange (and somehow ironicallu appropriate) choice of casting that seeps into the whole of the movie. Odd.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
7 Squirm (1976)
Squirm Company
As one of the weaker entries on this list, Squirm does manage to come away with being perhaps the grimiest. Squirm looks physically dirty, with its small town setting and swampy infrastructure. Ignore the non-existent plot and characters, and gaze at the whole rooms filled to the brim with killer earthworms, overrunning our heroes and making them look like floating driftwood against a wave. Fellow crazed worm movie, Tremors, would improve on this very silly idea in every single way years later, but if dirtied fingernail horror is what you want, check out Squirm.
6 Phase IV (1974)
Paramount
In very 70s sci-fi fashion, Phase IV was a slower, psychedelically out-there movie that felt really rather despondent. Despite being about, ahem, killer ants, this is one of the best of the animal features on this list, and comes off as tight on a slim budget where nothing has been spared. Most notable for its camera work and beautiful extreme close-ups (making its six legged antagonists look huge), as if everything were being seen from under a magnifying glass, Phase IV is a bizarre, quasi-philosophical bug movie classic. Most curiously, this was directed by Saul Bass, best known for his iconic work on film posters (Vertigo and The Shining, to name a few of many) and would be his only feature film.
5 Kingdom of The Spiders (1977)
Dimension Pictures
Want to see William Shatner vs spiders? Of course you do. The Star Trek actor plays a cowboy-hat-wearing ladies man in a small town suddenly overrun with vicious tarantulas that can kill in Kingdom of the Spiders (quickly released after Empire of the Ants). A stand-out scene remains the midair pilot as his cockpit is overrun by spiders, before crashing and exploding in a fiery explosion of girlish screams. Aside from its very dodgy acting here and there, this is a surprisingly good one, with a cracking ending that is confidently chilling.
4 Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom (1984)
Paramount Pictures
While there is so much more to this movie, Temple of Doom is certainly the ickiest of all the Jones boys. In deepest, darkest India, famed Doctor Indiana Jones finds himself trapped within a tomb as spikes lower in his very direction. His only hope is the easily spooked Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw), on the outside needed to pull the release lever on his tomb. The problem is that it’s covered in all sorts of tiny critters. In an honestly very gross movie that delights in chilled monkey brains and beating hearts being physically pulled from chests, it’s the insects segment that really does creep and crawl in the memory.
3 Men in Black (1997)
Columbia Pictures
Vincent D’Onofrio (Daredevil) puts in a career performance here as a man inhabited by an alien cockroach. Actually based on a Marvel comic, Men in Black is excellent start to finish, with every character being played by actors at their best. D’Onofrio is visibly grotesque and manipulates his whole body to make it look like this human vessel is lumbered, awkward, and unnatural. With accompanying creature design by Rick Baker and a cool-as-ice Will Smith, Men in Black is visibly sticky throwback to B-movies and conspiracy theories, and struts out as one of the best movies of the 1990s. The official Will Smith Men In Black tie-in song is also one of the greatest original songs ever made for a movie.
2 A Bugs Life (1998)
Pixar
A Bug’s Life (perhaps the only “nice” movie on this list) is a classic. As one of Pixar’s earlier works, A Bug’s Life was a colorful delight to view on release, with major animated colonies and incredible depictions of nature pushing the boundaries of what a computer generated movie could do. Everything about A Bug’s Life’s world-building, from its foolishly-driven Flik to its circus troupe masquerading as warriors is incredible, all while conforming to the circle of life trappings. Hopper (voiced by Kevin Spacey) is a villain for the ages, despite being only two cm tall. The spoof end credits gag reel is game-changingly trippy.
1 Starship Troopers (1997)
Sony Pictures
Starship Troopers argues that the only good bug is a dead bug in this satirical propaganda movie, by way of interplanetary warfare. Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien) has just signed up as a footsoldier to get revenge on a race of invading bugs who threaten planet Earth. Starship Troopers is such a gloriously violent movie for teenage boys, with heavy artillery, shower scenes, and loads of death. Its creature design is so varied, from pincers and wings, to its graphic and vaginal “Queen bug” towards the end that remains so grotesquely sticky. Neil Patrick Harris features as an equally slimy psychic.
