As "Mosquito" opens, some alien creatures dump some corpses / trash on Earth. They land in a swamp where the little flying blood suckers promptly do what they do best and feed on the corpses. This naturally causes them to grow to massive size and breed rapidly. The skeeters then descend on the people in the area. Among those who have to team up to save the day are Megan (Rachel Loiselle), an aspiring park ranger, Ray (Tim Lovelace), Megans' boyfriend, Parks (Steve Dixon), a scientist investigating meteor activity, a ranger named Hendricks (Ron Asheton, founding member of the punk rock band The Stooges), and a bank robber named Earl (none other than Gunnar Hansen).
Filmed on a modest budget in the woods of Michigan, "Mosquito" is pretty entertaining for this sort of thing. It doesn't really do anything special, but at least it was made in a time before CGI became the effects standard for such movies, and there is some very engaging practical creature effects and stop motion animation. Thanks to a decent pace established by co-writer / director Gary Jones and editors Tom Ludwig & William Shaffer, lively acting by the mostly no name cast, the aforementioned effects work, and an appreciably tongue in cheek approach, "Mosquito" does turn out to be fairly good. Well aware of leading actor Hansens' legacy, Jones and his fellow screenwriters make sure to get a chain saw into his hands, while having him say, "I haven't held one of these in 20 years".
Reasonably exciting at times, "Mosquito" leads to a literally explosive finish. And in a nice change of pace, Jones and company don't try to get cute with some sort of final gag, but just end things on a pleasant, agreeable note.
There are MUCH worse ways to spend 92 minutes of ones' time. Interested viewers might want to compare this to the thematically similar 1994 movie "Skeeter".
Seven out of 10.
Filmed on a modest budget in the woods of Michigan, "Mosquito" is pretty entertaining for this sort of thing. It doesn't really do anything special, but at least it was made in a time before CGI became the effects standard for such movies, and there is some very engaging practical creature effects and stop motion animation. Thanks to a decent pace established by co-writer / director Gary Jones and editors Tom Ludwig & William Shaffer, lively acting by the mostly no name cast, the aforementioned effects work, and an appreciably tongue in cheek approach, "Mosquito" does turn out to be fairly good. Well aware of leading actor Hansens' legacy, Jones and his fellow screenwriters make sure to get a chain saw into his hands, while having him say, "I haven't held one of these in 20 years".
Reasonably exciting at times, "Mosquito" leads to a literally explosive finish. And in a nice change of pace, Jones and company don't try to get cute with some sort of final gag, but just end things on a pleasant, agreeable note.
There are MUCH worse ways to spend 92 minutes of ones' time. Interested viewers might want to compare this to the thematically similar 1994 movie "Skeeter".
Seven out of 10.