Bug Movie Review

The city of Riverside is threatened with destruction after a massive Earth tremor unleashes a mob of prehistoric cockroaches that set fires with their butts, attack cats and housewives, and are virtually impervious to Raid. A local biology teacher, not content to leave well enough alone, crosses the critters with the common kitchen-variety roach. The new and improved (and hungry) super-roaches proceed to drive the Riversiders buggy. Based on Thomas Page's novel The Hephaestus Plague, this fairly effective creepy-crawler was produced by William “Gimmick King” Castle, who was known in the ‘50s for publicity stunts like wiring theatre seats to administer mild electric shocks to audiences’ bottoms. For Bug, Castle wanted to install windshield wiper-like devices under theatre seats that would brush against the patrons’ feet as the cockroaches crawled across the screen. This would have been a nice disco-era follow-up to Castle's previous gimmicks; unfortunately, the idea was squashed flat.

1975 (PG) 100m/C Bradford Dillman, Joanna Miles, Richard Gilliland, Jamie Smith-Jackson, Alan Fudge, Jesse Vint, William Castle; D: Jeannot Szwarc; W: William Castle; M: Charles Fox. VHS, Beta PAR