Thursday, May 22, 2008

Bug


Hey there. I caught this movie last weekend and I must say that I was disappointed. It had the premise to be a good flick but it lagged significantly in many areas. First off, I was drawn to this movie because Netflix recommended it, since I checked out Girl Next Door, which is pretty bad ass, and thought, what the hell, I'll check Bug out too. The description of it made it sound interesting. A psychological thriller full of suspense and what not. The movie left many questions unanswered and the ending was extremely disappointing.

First off, the movie is based on a theatrical play. The director thought the play was bad ass and figured he'd make it into a movie. So this is what he came up with.

The opening scene is a corpse lying on the floor in a room covered in foil. It's there only for a second. Enough time for you to say, "What the fuck?" and grab your attention. It grabbed mine. I instantly thought, oh hell yeah, this is gonna be good. Next thing you know, we're introduced to Agnes, the main character, and her phone constantly ringing off the hook. She answers it, but no one responds on the other end. She thinks it's her ex since he just got out of jail and she figured he'd be after her.

Agnes works in a bar and while there, she meets her friend RC. RC and Agnes soon go the Agnes' place and RC brings along a guy named Peter. While at her place, they drink and do drugs. Peter, being a quiet one doesn't do any of that and while he's in the bathroom, RC confesses that she just meet him that night and they joke that he's an axe murderer or something of the like. Peter tells the ladies that he's not and soon after R.C takes off, leaving Peter behind. Agnes invites Peter to stay since it's revealed that he's "in between homes".



Morning comes and Agnes gets up and sees a pot of coffee on the stove. She pours herself some and then walks over to the bathroom to thank Peter, since the shower is running. When the door opens, it's not Peter, but her ex, Jerry. They argue and fight and then he strikes her down. At that point, Peter walks in and Jerry gives him a few cold stares and then tells Agnes that he'll be back and takes off.

Peter and Agnes, then sit and talk about Jerry and what happened between the 2. Evidently, Agnes was in a store with her son in a cart, but when she turned, he disappeared. They both show compassion for each other and consequently, the have sex. Soon after, Peter gets up complaining that he got bit by a bug and they start looking for it on the bed. He finds it, but Agnes can't see it. Peter then blurts out that someone is after him and starts to get dressed. Agnes tries to convince him to stay since she is lonely and loves to hear Peter talk. Peter takes off but then soon returns and tells Agnes his story.



He tells Agnes that he was once in the military and that they used to do experiments on him. Injected him with all kinds of stuff and since the two had sex, he fears that he may have passed whatever they gave him to her. He then tells that the people that are after him is the military since he went AWOL. The two then get some sleep.

Come morning, the room is full of fly paper cause Peter is trying to rid the place of bugs. Jerry breaks into the place and confronts Peter, who is sitting on a table looking at his blood under a microscope. R.C. and Agnes then enter the three of them force Jerry to leave. Once he's gone, Peter shows Agnes that he has bugs in his blood. R.C contests that there are no bugs and all this is unnecessary. Peter then tells Agnes that she has bugs too. R.C. then blurts that they went to a doc and they found nothing wrong with Agnes. This infuriates Peter, believing that the doc is in on the experiment and lied to Agnes. He then lifts his shirt and shows all the "bite" marks all over his body. R.C. accusing him of doing it to himself, then tells Peter that a doctor was looking for him. After saying his name, Peter flips out. He starts to have a seizure and Agnes kicks R.C. out for trying to take Peter away from her.



Soon after, as the two lay down together, Peter's tooth starts to hurt. Convinced that the experiments done on him implanted bugs, the concludes that there is a nest of eggs on his tooth. With this, he storms up, grabs some pliers and pulls on his tooth until he gets it out. He looks at it under the microscope and discovers the bugs. Both look at each other in terror and then the scene fades.



The doctor looking for Peter starts to knock on the door. After some convincing Agnes opens the door. We then notice that the whole room is now covered in foil. The doc asks for Peter and tells her that he experimented on Peter and that he can "fix" all of this. She refuses to tell him where he is. The doc then brings up her lost son and claims that he knows where he is and he can bring him to her. With this, Peter storms out of the bathroom and holds the doc at knife point. After Agnes tells Peter that the doc knows where her son is, he stabs the doc to death. Hysterical, Agnes asks why he killed the doc and Peter goes on about people being implanted with microchips and that everyone has one and that's how the government keeps tabs on people. He found his and cut it out, that's another reason why they're after him. Then, a knock on the door. It's the pizza guy delivering a pizza they didn't order... they slip money under the door and tell him to leave it outside. Once he leaves, they get the pizza and inspect it under the microscope. Peter flips out when he finds bugs on it.

This is where the movie goes from bad to worst... They both start talking to each trying to figure out why them. They conclude that everyone around them is in on it. R.C, Peter, Agnes, Jerry, and their son all are intertwined in some way. After babbling on about what probably happened, Agnes loses it and starts shouting that she's the queen bug and they were meant to be together so that Peter and her can make millions of little bugs. They then look at each other knowing what to do and then they strip naked and cover themselves with gasoline. They then ignite themselves on fire and the movie ends. After the credits roll, that intro scene is then played again.

My first complaint... You NEVER see the damn bugs. This was a huge disappointment because it doesn't help to understand Peter and Agnes. Are the bugs real? Are they psychological? And if so, how did the "bite" marks occur? It just leaves so many questions opened that it did not make the movie satisfying. Then there's the issue with the doctor. Was he really an android as Peter made him out to be, or an actual person that Peter murdered due to his paranoia? I mean, they act through the second half of the movie smacking themselves killing bugs but you don't get a sense of their presence. You only see what they believe is out there and there is never any clarification what so ever. Did the army experiment on him? You don't know. Just not my fancy and again, an extreme disappointment of a movie.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for the heads up, I was gonna rent this.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hey there. Yeah man, this is a flick that you'll either love it, or hate it. Not very good in my opinion. I have "Captivity" sitting at home, so I'll be writing about that one soon. Thanks for the comment.

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