Bug Buster

This is one of those movies that leaves you wondering, with a cast like this why was it so bad, or why does a cast like this feel the need to appear in a film this bad.

Out of all the best known names James Doohan, George Takei and Denis Quaid, you figure they surely don't need the money, and if they did do they need it this badly.

This film can't seem to make up it's mind what it wants to be, if it's meant to be a straight, creature horror flick, it fails miserably, and if it's meant to be a tongue in cheek spoof, it fails miserably as well, in fact the only good thing about this film is the consistency, it starts of really bad, continues to be really bad in the middle, and, shooting a slight hole in my own theory, it actually gets worse at the end.

I kept expecting James Doohan to revert to a Scots accent and Say "Ya canna break the law of insects Cap'n' and perhaps it wouldn't have been so bad if he had, it did make a change to her him with, what I assume was his natural voice, for those of you who didn't know he is in fact Canadian, and George Takei as an insect scientist OH MY GOD! (this needs to be said like Janice out of Friends) Another thing I couldn't handle was the size of the town and the women, before you all go crazy let em explain. I live in a tiny little village in England, when compared to the size of the States would probably be of equivalent size to the town this is set in, and most of the women in my village are either over 60 or under 6 or married with kids, we have no incredibly sexy blonde scientist, no beautiful single brunettes and certainly no gorgeous nymphomaniacs taking the men skinny dipping at night. To think I've met people who've had really good ideas for films if only they'd had the chance, and to see a film like this just confirms there is no justice in the world, well in the film industry anyway. If you don't like bugs you'll hate this film, come to think of it even if you love bugs you'll probably hate it.

In the small lakeside town of Mountview, in California, the Major decides to pulverize a dangerous substance to protect the local plantation. Thirteen years later, a harmful and lethal species of cockroaches appears nearby the lake, threatening and killing the local dwellers. The famous exterminator General George S. Merlin (Randy Quaid) is called to fight against the bugs.

Yesterday I was walking around downtown of Rio de Janeiro, and I found this DVD on sale for less than US$ 3.00. When I saw the names of Star Trek crew James "Scotty" Doohan, George "Sulu" Takei, Randy Quaid and the delicious Katherine Heigl in the cast I immediately bought and saw it at night.

The story of "Bug Buster" is simply ridiculous and the performances are awful, being difficult to highlight the worst in the "amazing" cast: the hero David Lipper, in the role of Steve Williams? Ty O'Neal, the smart Deputy Bo? Meredith Salenger, the slut Veronica Hart? George Takei, the crazy entomologist Professor Hiro Fujimoto? Randy Quaid, the exaggerated General George S. Merlin? I believe the correct answer would be all of them. Further, the cheap special effects are laughable. But this director Lorenzo Doumani is "hors-concours", seeming to be the reincarnation of Ed Wood. In spite of being so bad, the most impressive is that in the end I liked this flick, and I laughed a lot. It has also a great potential of cult-movie, a big joke, missing only the usual naked women, or the breast of Katherine Heigl to complete the appeal. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Baratas Assassinas" ("Cockroaches Killers")

Hi, Everyone,

I was the keyboard player in the band "Trailer Park Trash" in the movie. Fortunately they misspelled my last name in the movie credits. No, just joking. It was a fun experience (making the movie was fun, watching it was a little excruciating).

Johnny Legend and Melba Toast and I had performed lots of times at various Country Music spots in L.A. over the years of the 80s and 90s. We performed for the producer at some of his Christmas parties. He decided to use us for the scene in the lodge. It was very very hot when we did our scene. It was over 100 outside and hotter inside. The air conditioning had to be turned off while we were filming.

It was nice to work with the cast and crew. The movie turned out pretty bad but still fun to watch if you have friends over on a Saturday night and you want to laugh at the screen. Maybe the perfect DVD to get for your mother-in-law or your wife's attorney.

The bugs that attacked Johnny Legend during our musical numbers were very real. Not some special effect. There was a "bug wrangler" on the set. They are some kind of cockroach from South America or somewhere and they are as long as a grown man's index finger and as fat as a man's thumb.

I would like to say something really good about the movie but I will have to come back if I can think of something.

Tom Willett

My wife can't stand Randy Quaid (except in ID4), and I'm beginning to come around to her point of view. Actually, though, he's the comedy highlight (sad but true) of this really weird rip-off of Arachnophobia. He plays the John Goodman character, except less seriously. His self-styled "bug commando" resembles nothing less than Wyle Coyote as he detonates a hand grenade on himself but is later "recovering nicely" by the end of the movie.

For extra fun, you can watch Star Trek vets George Takei and James Doohan humiliate themselves. If only they could have got Nichelle Nichols, Grace Lee Whitney, and Marina Sirtis, the cast of has-been Star Trek actors would have been complete.

Oh, the plot? Well, it's somewhat of a mess. There are these roaches (although sometimes they're worms and sometimes they're really big mosquitos - not for the screenwriters the hobgoblins of consistency and continuity!) and they're overrunning a small lakeside community. There's no real explanation for this. The local sherriff (Doohan) seems to be in on this (he's taking advantage of the devalued property to buy up the land cheap), but maybe he isn't. Maybe he's being controlled by the "queen" roach. Maybe he isn't. It's hard to tell.

Essentially the bugs get inside human bodies and eat their way out after breeding within. The daughter of a local lodge owners is the heroine, inexplicably stalked by a Peeping Tom who preaches doom and despair (what he has to do with the movie's plot is never made clear either, although we do get to see her in near-naked once or twice).

Anyhoo, she becomes romantically involved with the local bad boy (who is being stalked by the local even badder girl, who meets a suitably gory end), and together they must try to defeat the roaches. A few more people die, including Takei's scientific character (poor George seems to have picked up William Shatner's acting style through osmosis - oh the humanity!), and Bernie Kopell and Anne Lockhart (in the middle of a sex scene - ugghhh!).

Our hapless heroes must call in General Merlin, Quaid in a remarkably low-budget role for him (he usually humiliates himself in much bigger films) as a military man turned bug exterminator. They eventually wander off, find the roaches lair, defeat the queen roach (after she finishes off a big slab of ham, i.e., James Doohan), and even though there's at least one other giant bug out there (the one that killed Takei's character), and the female scientist and the surviving deputy are making ominous "something is out there still" noises, the heroine drives off the end for a shock ending that will surprise absolutely no one.

The CGI of the giant queen roach isn't bad, but watching Quaid spar with the puppet version (complete with unconcealed wires) has to be seen to be believed. The rest of the movie is typical gross-out fodder. There seems to be a kind of tongue-in-cheek intent here, but that only works if the movie is funny. It isn't. Sorry.

See, when I go to my local used tape store, I write down a bunch of titles and check 'em out on imdb. I got Bug Buster on the basis of the seriously negative reviews, and, by and large, it was pretty bad.

The big problem is that Lorenzo Wossname that directed this bumph doesn't know how to move his actors around on a set and have them speak clearly and distinctly into the camera, moving their hands when required to convey emotion-OK, OK, the guy can't direct for squat. The plot creaks when it moves, and the only original thought in the entire movie is turning Bernie Kopell into a love god.

And, yeah, the Quaid sucks on toast. And, yeah, the Julie Brown character is even worse. But, dammit, Meredith Salenger overcomes the lousy direction, and her last scene is really disturbing and convincing, to the extent that I replayed it just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating from too much Diet Dr. Pepper. And the Mama Bug at the end wasn't half bad, for having been constructed at a total cost of a new Kia Sephia with a crappy radio.

So, frankly, I wish it'd been a lot worse. If I lay down five bucks for a used tape, I want it to bite majorly. I want it to make Night of Horror look like The Innocents. I want to strengthen my belief in the futility of human endeavor.

This wasn't bad enough. Sure, it's a mess, both completely unbelievable and with every plot twist and virtually every line stolen from somebody else. But it's nicely shot, Johnny Legend is in it and is pretty good, Meredith Salenger overcomes an earlier speech she was forced to make at gunpoint about how nice her boobs are and does something she can be proud of, and the Mama Bug provided an OK finish.

Rats. Oh, well. On the same trip I also copped Pink Motel, and I have high hopes.