The nightmare of bugs crawling into our most private orifices to incubate comes to life with killer insect horror of the 2000s! And They Nest and Insecticidal make the perfect double feature.
THEY NEST (2000)
After spending the 90s as Dr. Michael Mancini on Melrose Place, cutie Thomas Calabro took a creepy crawly comic turn in They Nest as…a doctor. This squirm inducing midnight movie with plenty of dry humor comes from director Ellory Elkayem, who went on to bring us Eight Legged Freaks and both Return of the Living Dead Necropolis and Rave to the Grave.
Calabro plays a stressed surgeon taking some time off in his house on a small Maine island when a dead body floats up on the shore…and unleashes bugs that have been nesting inside it.
They Nest definitely takes a while to find its stride. It only becomes clear this is a comedy when Calabro has a playful, farcical encounter with a few of the bugs in his house.
When he’s suspected of killing the local jerk, who has been harassing him, he offers to examine the body to find the real cause of death…and discovers the gross truth.
They Nest picks up in pace as it progresses, morphing into a load of nauseating bug fun. Bugs crawl in mouths. Bugs crawl out of mouths. Stomachs burst open to reveal bug cities inside. Swarms of bugs are everywhere, trying to get inside anyone they can. It’s slimy. It’s gooey. It’s icky. It’s just gory enough so that you don’t puke up your popcorn.
INSECTICIDAL (2005)
This one is an unapologetic giant bug sex comedy from director Jeffery Scott Lando (Suspension, Haunted High, Goblin, House Of Bones).
A science nerd is distraught when her bitchy sorority sister kills all her creepy crawlies with an insecticide after one of them gets out of its tank and disrupts her sex session.
Before long, the critters come back to life, mutated into giant CGI animated bugs—most of which are not technically insects.
There are girl boobs. There are lipstick lesbians. There are college boy butts.
There’s gross out humor…like a guy going under the sheets to lick some labia, but chowing down on giant leech instead. Yes indeed, it’s that kind of movie.
Even so, Insecticidal takes a while to pick up speed. It’s not until 45 minutes in that the campy sorority sisters vs. giant bugs fun really begins.
The silly, slapstick shenanigans as the sorority sisters band together to battle the bugs is cheesetastic, and the bad CGI bugs are perfectly cast.
As if that’s not enough bang for your bug, the bitchy sorority sister, begins to suffer from a…um…stomach bug and eventually becomes queen of the pesks.
Actress Rhonda Dent totally steals the show in the role. She seriously needs to do more horror comedy, because she rules.
