`They Crawl' is a great and successful attempt to bring back the giant bug movies with a modern twist.
**SPOILERS**
Returning home to see his brother, Ted Gage (Daniel Cosgrove) learns that he has died in a freak accident at his apartment. He visits his teacher, Prof Jurgen, (Dennis Boutsikaris) and learns that he and a friend, Shane Torian (Scott Rinker) had stumbled upon top secret military codes for controlling insects. Ted crosses paths with Det. O'Bannon (Tamara Davies) who is conducting an investigation into another accident around the same time. Because the two accidents both look very similar in the way that their body's looked upon death, they decide to continue investigating both cases together. Tracking down Shane, they discover that he has killed himself in an explosion. When the coroner (Ken Lerner) discovers military grade explosives at all three sites, Gage and O'Bannon follow a loose assortment of clues that leads them to believe that a small government group may be altering cockroaches to become the next cutting edge military weapon, and race to stop the culprits before they unleash the roaches upon the city.
The Good News: This was very entertaining. It moved at a very fast pace and never loses your interest at any time. As more clues are discovered, you wait to see how they all piece themselves together. It falls into the intelligence required category of films because so much thought went into the script to make it all sense was a real challenge. The twist at the end was very surprising and came totally out of left field. The pieces being handed to us were leading up to another conclusion that you were drawing upon, but then it changes, leaving you both surprised and dumbfounded as all the clues begin unraveling in the film. I really like the creative thinking movie, one where you expect to get an answer to a question only to be struck with another question to answer later on. I give his film high props for this. As it was a TV movie, I wasn't expecting the reasonably high gore quotient. It wasn't `Day of the Dead' gory, but for what it is, this is pretty gory. Watching a person reduced to a wasted skeleton in a matter of seconds from the cockroaches was pretty shocking. It was realistically done, which helps greatly when you're trying to pull off gore.
The Bad News: The complicated plot is a little hard to piece together, as things and ideas are introduced at the beginning and never explained or resolved until the ending. That was a little maddening, waiting for some question to be answered and another question is proposed. It shouldn't make that big a difference, but when the movie asks you to hold over ten questions at once, then it can become a drag. The intelligence needed to watch it may hinder some viewers, wanting something to happen, is very high, and is almost on the same plan as that of the writers who scripted it.
The Final Verdict: The complicated plot not withstanding, this is a very good killer roach movie that asks a lot of the viewer, but it is enjoyable and is recommended for those who need to exercise their brains thinking about a movie instead of always turning it off.
Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, and mentions of drug use.
**SPOILERS**
Returning home to see his brother, Ted Gage (Daniel Cosgrove) learns that he has died in a freak accident at his apartment. He visits his teacher, Prof Jurgen, (Dennis Boutsikaris) and learns that he and a friend, Shane Torian (Scott Rinker) had stumbled upon top secret military codes for controlling insects. Ted crosses paths with Det. O'Bannon (Tamara Davies) who is conducting an investigation into another accident around the same time. Because the two accidents both look very similar in the way that their body's looked upon death, they decide to continue investigating both cases together. Tracking down Shane, they discover that he has killed himself in an explosion. When the coroner (Ken Lerner) discovers military grade explosives at all three sites, Gage and O'Bannon follow a loose assortment of clues that leads them to believe that a small government group may be altering cockroaches to become the next cutting edge military weapon, and race to stop the culprits before they unleash the roaches upon the city.
The Good News: This was very entertaining. It moved at a very fast pace and never loses your interest at any time. As more clues are discovered, you wait to see how they all piece themselves together. It falls into the intelligence required category of films because so much thought went into the script to make it all sense was a real challenge. The twist at the end was very surprising and came totally out of left field. The pieces being handed to us were leading up to another conclusion that you were drawing upon, but then it changes, leaving you both surprised and dumbfounded as all the clues begin unraveling in the film. I really like the creative thinking movie, one where you expect to get an answer to a question only to be struck with another question to answer later on. I give his film high props for this. As it was a TV movie, I wasn't expecting the reasonably high gore quotient. It wasn't `Day of the Dead' gory, but for what it is, this is pretty gory. Watching a person reduced to a wasted skeleton in a matter of seconds from the cockroaches was pretty shocking. It was realistically done, which helps greatly when you're trying to pull off gore.
The Bad News: The complicated plot is a little hard to piece together, as things and ideas are introduced at the beginning and never explained or resolved until the ending. That was a little maddening, waiting for some question to be answered and another question is proposed. It shouldn't make that big a difference, but when the movie asks you to hold over ten questions at once, then it can become a drag. The intelligence needed to watch it may hinder some viewers, wanting something to happen, is very high, and is almost on the same plan as that of the writers who scripted it.
The Final Verdict: The complicated plot not withstanding, this is a very good killer roach movie that asks a lot of the viewer, but it is enjoyable and is recommended for those who need to exercise their brains thinking about a movie instead of always turning it off.
Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, and mentions of drug use.