BIG BAD BUGS (2012)

BIG BAD BUGS (2012)

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(Action, Adventure, Incredible Amounts Of Stupidity) [PG]

Note: This movie was not given an MPAA rating. I believe it would have landed a PG-13 because it was released with a TV-14 rating. 

In this one, a team of soldiers disappears with quack scientist Sydney Gerber who has been doing some dangerous experiments involving wormholes. A special op is called in to go see what happened. When they arrive in the area they are pretty much immediately attacked by giant spiders, giant scorpions, bees, and at some point a giant snake from another dimension.  

So there are 2 reasons I decided to check this out. One major reason is that it’s got a super crazy poster that made it look like it was worth a shot. I already review a lot of bottom-of-the-barrel garbage (like THE BATMAN), so if you through in a rad poster and then you throw in my second reason for checking this out, count me in. My second reason for checking it out is Sarah Lieving. She does a lot of cheesy b-movies and she always stands out as being one of the best talents in “insert movie here”. Showing up in everything from KING OF THE LOST WORLD to SUPER SHARK, you can always count on Sarah to pretty much outperform everyone in the movie. BIG BAD BUGS is no exception.

I think if this movie had gone with a straightforward “giant bug” scenario like BIG ASS SPIDER did, then actually had some humor in this “comedy” movie, then maybe people wouldn’t be ripping on it like it was some dumpster fire A24 put out. The premise ends up being so convoluted and void of actual BIG BAD BUGS that we end up with a 45-minute side story that mostly involves Sydney Gerber kind of being shown as a victim, then a crazed ego-maniac. We also get William (played by Jack Plotnick) kind of trying to win over his ex-wife Catherine (played by Sarah Lieving) who is also on this mission. This part I thought was fine, but up against a weird dimensional backdrop to explain why the bugs are big just makes no sense when you try and cram all these pieces together. 

Acting wise Jack Plotnick is good for this role as William. He is mostly known for b-movies but was also in the eclectic high-concept horror flick RUBBER. As per usual Sarah Lieving is also good as Catherine. I wasn’t crazy about Ted Jonas who played Steven Raiger but he did what he was asked to do, so I am not going to trash his acting. I can say that I found Camden Toy was especially annoying as Sydney Gerber who I just couldn’t wait to see get eaten by a bug or stung or something. 

When it comes to the score, I thought that was actually okay. The soundtrack was fine as well, but the rest of this thing comes across as a student film you would get from first-year students that were told to use just their iPhones. It’s very rough. I also didn’t like any of the secondary characters. They all seemed pretty thrown in there and as a result, the dialog is flat. It’s almost like they got past this weird storyline with the dimensions and wormhole, they couldn’t really think of what to do with the dialog we get from any of the secondary characters. 

Overall I love big bombastic swings for the fences where we are just getting all the whacky ideas that the major studios are afraid of but this thing is a disaster. I can normally find something I like in flicks like this, like the awesome bee design, and that helps out, but this bee and Sarah Lieving couldn’t fix this movie. It is just wildly terrible and I can’t in good faith recommend it to anyone. 

This thing gets a 1 out of 7. I don’t give out many of these, but this is just a really bad flick that sucks all the fun out of what we “could” have gotten with a title like this. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF SUPERNOVA FILMS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.