Bugged

Have you ever misjudged a movie? Not the "oh, this'll suck... this sucks... no it doesn't, it rules"-variety, but rather the sneaking feeling that your assumptions about what kind of movie you're watching were about as wrong as the little voice whispering "House of the dead can't be bad, it has zombies." Surprises like these are either good or bad, it's undeniably plesant when it's the former, and a special sort of pluck-your-eyebrows-while-visiting-a-hobo-dentist pain is associated with the latter. In short, it's a game of russian roulette with Two-Face, and this time, I just so happened to come up with somewhat of a positive result.

Bug is a 2006 horror movie directed by William Friedkin, director of The French Connection and The Exorcist. From the trailers and the ever-lying back of the cover, I got the impression this was your standard monster insect movie. I mean, guy and girl, running from abusive ex-boyfriend of said girl, barricade themselves against an army of bugs, sorta like Arachnophobia, I think, seeing as I haven't seen it due to my tendencies towards the titular phobia.

I had allready started pondering on if the bugs in this movie was a representation of repressed and/or twisted undesirable urges a la Birds, or just a vengeful avatar of Mother Earth and/or god. Turns out the answer was not going to be quite as simple as that, mostly because the question had been changed rather radically.

I have this pet theory that no matter how obvious, in-your-face screaming and drooling a horror movie monster is, some people will inevitably be convinced the that the monster is, in fact, not real, and either an halucination, projection of the protagonists desire to killmaimstabmurder, a comatose or dying dream or something along those lines, alternatively just a dream, if you feel unimaginative. The thing with bug is that the question does get rather in your face, because we, the audience are not really given any actual evidence for the monster, or rather, titular bug's existance.

Granted, the two main characters does see the bugs, but we don't, and this drives the uncertanity on further. Of course, about the time that the main characters start raving about the Bildenburg meeting and "The Man" implanting tracking bug eggs into his teeth, it becomes painfully obvious he's off his rocker, although I think the slow transformation from "white trash breeding ground" to "Room full of Crazy" might also be a good indication you're heading off the map in that respect.

The movie is somewhat underrated on IMDB, although I have long since stopped relying on that site as my sole provider of movie quality determiner. Not to seem snobby or anything, but I've more and more started to rely on my own impressions of a movie rather than the reviews. Sure, I might step into a few beartraps, but walking your own path certainly has its charms. More on that later though, the bottom line is that Bug is a worthwhile movie to check out, not so much if you're in the mood for a monster slasher, but definitely not without its eww-moments.