infestation

Big bugs is one of those staples of horror films.

I guess it's obvious why - bugs are not on many people's lists of favourite beasties and the bigger they are the more icky they tend to be.  So making them really big is an easy way to create a good "bad guy" and of course splatting them is always fun.

Fun is the real order of the day here - infestation is definitely a low-budget horror, but it's the great sense of fun that really carries the film.  I mean, there's not much here that's really original, but it keeps up enough of a sense of what it is that you're happy to go along for the ride.

Saying that there are a few interesting things in there.  In particular the film starts very normally and the switch to the big bug stuff is very quickly and cleverly done.  It also gives rise to a situation where our hero is very much a hero by accident.  I mean, he rises to the occasion in the end, but it's just random chance that puts him into the situation he finds himself in.

The characters are just on the right side of cliché.  You've mostly seen them before and you know what they're about, but you get enough of a flavour that they're proper characters to engage with them.  It has a feel of being what you'd expect to actually happen if an apocalypse happened.

The sort of people you'd encounter would end up being pretty random - especially with how this works out.  The hero essentially revives people and of course if you were in town on any particular day the sort of people around you could be anybody.

The effects are quite good.  It's low budget, but nowadays they can do great things with both prosthetics and computer graphics even on tiny budgets so it really doesn't look bad at all.

One thing I would say is that the ending is a little frustrating.  It's clear it was set up as being for a sequel, but it's very open ended.  It's not quite clear what that sequel would be and the ending is therefore a little frustrating.  Particularly in light of the fact there isn't a sequel.

You know I don't really have a lot else to say about the film, other than that it's well worth checking out if you fancy a bit of big bug action.