It’s finally here. Large parts of the midwest will soon experience the massive horde of cicadas known in the science world simply as Brood X.
Since you can’t go out to a haunted house or haunted theme park, there is no better way to celebrate this than by inviting your friends over for a bug-themed night of horror and laughter. Here are some films to get you started.
Bug. There is not a better place to start an insect horror movie binge than the classic cringe-fest that is Bug. Start with your average household cockroaches. Make them ten times larger. Give them near-human intelligence. Give them a hunger for human flesh. Set them loose on unsuspecting Americans. That is the formula for Bug. You and your friends will squirm and scream, and your fear of insects will be triggered again and again.
Mimic. This Guillermo Del Toro film exploits our fear of oversized cockroaches by combining it with our inability to look away from the horror when we get a chance to see the monster up close. Sure, some time is spent setting up the story, and no one will ever argue that it is Del Toro’s masterpiece, but there is good fun to be had when the monsters finally appear on screen.
Arachnophobia. Okay, yes, we know. Spiders are not insects. Technically they are arachnids, and in some sense, they are the good guys in our fight against insects … because they eat insects. However, that does not prevent us from fearing them. In this case, the enemy of our enemy is still the enemy. This movie perfectly exploits our natural fear of spiders by putting them every place we put our hand where we cannot see, dropping them on our heads, crawling them over our feet, and otherwise triggering every dark nightmare or living jump scare you;ve ever had with a spider. This one WILL scare you and your friends, and it will affect you for weeks to come as you enter the closet or try on a shoe.
Cicada! In this 2018 film, an environmental disaster unleashes the only thing worse than an actual Brood X plague of cicadas: an invasion of super-sized cicadas enveloping Los Angeles. Imagine these deafeningly loud and aimless flying creatures deciding to feast on you and your neighbors! This comedy horror film will satisfy the feelings you have of being horrified by the cicadas as they fly in your face while laughing at the many stupid ways in which they die.