Movie Review: "Bug" (1975)
(Originally posted at https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6766469/?ref_=tt_urv)
THIS IS IT! You found it—the one, the only, the inimitable BUG—the single greatest cinematic achievement not just of the admittedly crowded field of mid-20th-century apocalyptic mutated insect sci-fi horror film, nor even only in the sci-fi or horror film genres, but in human motion picture history, writ large unto itself. The unrelenting cinematic greatness that Bug doles out in heaping helpings to your uncomprehending cerebellum—line after line, minute after minute, scene after scene, shrieking burning head explosion after shrieking burning head explosion, without pause from the opening preacher's sermon to the closing descent into the stygian bowels of the earth itself—simply cannot be adequately conveyed within the constraints of this forum. It has to be experienced firsthand.
The mere fact that this is one of the only opportunities in American cinema to see a woman's head get set on fire in the Brady Bunch kitchen set would likely be foremost among the draws of virtually any more ordinary film it might appear in. But Bug is no ordinary film. Even something that would obviously be the highlight of most movie-goers' entire seasons is here only the very most trivial, the most trifling footnote to the veritable cavalcade of entertainments bestowed upon the fortunate viewer of this inestimable apotheosis of thrilling human visual storytelling endeavor.
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