Bug (2007)
Review by Tony DeFrancisco
I said before that horror movies aren’t scary anymore. If you wanted to see something terrifying, you turn on the news. The last time I saw a scary movie was back when I saw The Shining for the first time two years ago, and since then, I haven’t seen anything scary. I finally saw one of the scariest movies I would ever see in my life. It’s not a traditional horror film, with no actual cold-blooded killer, no zombies, and no little Asian kid that purrs like a cat. It doesn’t rely on its gore, and is what you would classify in the same genre as Requiem for a Dream. It doesn’t scare you right away, and it waits for a damn hour for the scares to actually start coming to you. So you ask, what gives? What kind of a damn horror movie is this? Folks, this is no horror film. If you are expecting something with a killer, look away. But if you were expecting a drama that uses a much serious and much more original tone, look no further than Bug, one of the greatest horror flicks of all time and just happens to be one of the best movies to even show its face this year. Don’t even think about missing Bug, because if you are going to be paying Lions Gate one and only brainchild this year (and if you weren’t smart enough to know what that is, it’s the new Saw movie), you should be paying your twenty bucks to buy this movie, and I NEVER tell you to buy movies, do I? DO I?!
Bug starts off slow, so slow that I actually got bored. I will admit, but it was only the first five minutes. But because I didn’t enjoy these five minutes, you are missing a whole lot. Agnes (Ashley Judd, who I no longer call “America’s Top Piece of Shit”) is a lonely woman, and it’s best she stays that way. Her abusive ex-boyfriend just got released from prison (Harry Connick, Jr.) and her son has been missing. Her friend, R.C. (Lynn Collins), introduces her to a Gulf War veteran named Peter (Michael Shannon), who also has a past of his own. For what is only one night at sleeping at her room, the second night they sleep together, make love, and begin a relationship with one another. After that love making session, Peter wakes up and feels a bug biting him, and it’s not just one bug. After one, there are two. After two, there are four. And after one-hundred twenty-eight bugs, there are two-hundred fifty-six bugs. No one else can see these bugs, and the only ones that can feel the bites are Peter and Agnes.
And here is the scary part – we think Peter is nuts, but he claims that he isn’t. He KNOWS that the government planted these bugs during his treatment from the war. Ashley Judd’s Agnes is so desperate for a friend, that while she still doesn’t believe him, she doesn’t want him to leave. That’s what rules the film. Once she does believe him, once she gets the bites, she suddenly has the same thing that Peter has. The pacing in Bug is so excellent that these one-hundred minutes flew by just like that, but there is a lot of dialogue. If you guys hated Death Proof, don’t even see Bug to begin with. Bug is more of a character development movie in the first act. We meet the characters and for the first forty minutes, they do nothing… but…talk…like…this. In these forty minutes, Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon feel awkward as hell around each other. Director William Friedkin builds up the tension here before he introduces us to the bugs, and then there is more talking, but then the suspense starts rolling in the hotel room…and then we actually find a side of these characters that we never saw before.
Once the bugs start to come, these actors become familiar with one another, chemistry begins to form, and we are left with the final result. I’ll tell you right now that Judd and Shannon have such great chemistry that once they start to become paranoid, they become so believable that you begin asking yourself if these two actors are really nuts to begin with (think of Jim Carrey from The Number 23, but don’t you ever, ever, EVER compare him to Shannon and Judd like I just did. Ever). For Shannon, it shouldn’t be a surprise. He has been playing the role for so long that he has probably become the role he has played. Ashley Judd, however, is as surprising as Paris Hilton telling us that she is a virgin. I think that Ashley Judd is one of the worst actors on the face of the earth, or thought. Actually, I’m thinking about giving her the Tony DeFrancisco Best Actress Award for 2007. Her performance is so shaking and so, so, oh so fantastic. I only give awards to the best of the best, and Ashley Judd is now given the respect for being the best of the best.
But I forgot to tell you. The film takes place at the same place for almost the entire movie, a small hotel room that consists of a living room, the bedroom, and a bathroom. It is so small, so congested. Within the first hour, Bug has changed its location. Actually, it doesn’t change, but the entire hotel room is covered up in aluminum foil. William Friedkin has the balls to do this, and this is where the movie gets really, really, really intense, and I never use that word. Because in this last thirty minutes, Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon are so scary and feel so insane that it would make Ted Bundy feel sane. Then Bug comes to its revolution. I love it when films do this, where they piece the clues together and they finally get what they have been looking for (which is one of the reasons that I like the ending to the original Scary Movie). Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon are so emotionally sensitive by this point that I began to shake, and looked away. The tension in their voices has been haunting in my sleep. I will never watch a horror film the same way again.
Bug is definitely an accomplishment for the horror genre. I’ve seen THREE horror movies that I actually enjoyed this year. The first one was Disturbia, which was just so funny and scary at the same time that it was just pure fun. The second one was The Mad, and do I really have to get into this one? The third one is Bug. I don’t think I will ever watch this movie again, but that’s a compliment. Next to Requiem for a Dream, it is one of the two movies that I can’t watch without turning my eyes away from the TV. Go see it. I am begging you. If you can do better, tell me. The scariest movie since The Shining, and I will stick that quote so far up The Shining’s ass that it will stay there until Bug is forgotten.
Too bad that won’t last too long. Saw IV is coming out in only four weeks.
Available from Amazon
Thursday, September 27th, 2007 at 7:55 am | Filed under Horror Reviews.
RSS 2.0 feed |
Discussion is closed.
Comments are closed.