The Buzz Kills

This week we’re getting thoroughly bugged by three insect-themed nightmares. We start with the original body-horror classic The Fly (1958), then crawl into the human-mimicking horrors of Mimic, and finish up getting sucked dry by the oversized bloodsuckers in Mosquito. Science experiments gone wrong, giant bugs with attitude, and zero effective repellent. Grab a drink and try not to itch.

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Welcome to Dad Bot of Horror, Season 1, Episode 29. I'm your host, Butch Bar. Still no co-host. That's okay. We're moving on. We'll see what happens in the future. So I want to start my housekeeping with uh the previous episode. Um, the sound quality might have been a little bit different. No, I did not have any type of surgery on my mouth and was not wearing um, I don't know, a night sleeping guard or whatever. The fact is, I got a new iPhone. And uh my original equipment that I was using for the podcast used the you know, the old iPhone Jack. And my new iPhone takes the USB-C, because God forbid Apple uses the same charging devices over multiple years. So I had to use a different device record to show, and it was just a different sound quality. So I was able to get an adapter to go back to the old the old rig that I was working. So hopefully everything sounds better on this episode. Also, in the previous episode, I reviewed a movie um and mistakenly called it Snake River. I guess I was thinking of evil Knievel or something. Uh the name of the movie is actual actually Snake Creek. So uh if you want to if you were really interested in that movie and you couldn't find it, well, it's called Snake Creek. I did see uh two horror movies since the last episode. Uh the first one is called Were Deer and like Werewolf, Were Deer, and it's on Tubi. And it's basically a guy returns to his like red Nikki root type uh where he grew up, his parents and whatnot, and his girlfriend gets bitten by a deer and turns into a wear deer. Um it is pretty much as ridiculous as it sounds. Uh I was debating on like what to give her a rating. I'm gonna go with a four out of ten, because quite frankly, like it's ridiculous, but um it's really not horrible. Like the production values are there, like the acting's not horrible. There's nothing terrible about it, it's just not great. Um, I give it a four out of ten. And then the movie um my wife and I watch the movie Obsession, and that's on Peacock. So lots of my friends are raving about this thing. Even my my son said that it was really good. I because of my friends, I've actually seen similar relationships to this, so I guess I was too close to enjoy it as much as I should have. Um I give it a a six out of ten. It was it was okay. I think I think the the best part, like my wife said, like we watched all of this for the last like two minutes. Like the endings okay, but I think maybe I'm just too close because of relationships that uh friends of mine have gone through. So we will start season one, episode 29, with the movie The Fly from 1958. You can find it, uh well, you'd have to rent or buy it on Prime. That's what I did. Production company 20th Century Fox and Regal Films. Director is Kurt Newman. Writer is uh James Clavell and George Langolin. Langolin? L-A-N-G-E-L-A-A-N Langolin. Stars David Hedison, Patricia Owens, and Vincent Price. The plot. A scientist has a horrific accident when he tries to use his newly invented teleportation device. That is pretty true. Why this movie? Um again, no real reason going on other than the theme this week is uh bug movies. How did I see it? So I'm pretty sure I watched this for the first time during uh you know a Saturday creature double feature. It seems like that makes sense. I've seen it a few times, but it is a really good movie. Um favorite kill, only one person is killed in the movie, and it's sort of an assisted suicide, so nothing you know uh fantastical, I'll say, about that. So this movie is absolutely a classic. If you haven't seen it, you really should. And again, this is 1958 version, it's not the uh not the one from the 80s. It's it's a it's a great movie, but there is very little action in it at all. But it's although it's a horror, it's as much a drama as is a horror or even a police type movie. The movie kind of starts like at the end. So the uh the scientist that accidentally teleported with a fly-in and was transformed, um, was had been killed by his wife in uh in uh industrial press. And then uh so all they know is that this scientist was killed, and his wife is saying telling all the police that she did it, and they're trying to figure out why she would kill her husband, and then eventually it gets to the point where she tells everybody, the police, and her brother-in-law, who's played by Vincent Price, um, what happened, and the movie is kind of walking through that. So the the director, Kurt Newman, Newman. This was the biggest hit of his entire career directing. Um, unfortunately, he did die before its general release, so he never got to see the success that it was. I bought it off of Prime, and um I started watching it, and I'm thinking, like, wow, this is a colorized version. I wish I would have bought the black and white version. And as I'm watching, I'm like, wow, they really, this is like some of the best colorization I've ever seen. I mean, if you've watched a colorized movie, you know what I'm talking about, where it's like, you know, the the computer grabs stuff and maybe colored it just slightly different, or it like it pops back and forth between two colors, or they don't doesn't match up real nice. But this is like perfect. And I thought, wow, they really did a great job on on how they colorize things now. And uh, like is this is the best colorization I've ever seen. But I was reading up on the fly, and apparently there are a lot of people that are out there that are like me. Because the fly was shot in color. I don't know why I think I saw it in black and white multiple times, but I was wrong. And uh you know, they attributed to the Mandela effect. The movie itself is based off of a short story by this George Langland guy, which appeared in the 1950s, June 1957 issue of Playboy. So, see, some guys do read Playboy for the articles. So, in the movie, there's you know, basically you do you get to see the the guy with basically a fly head on and a fly arm. But originally, there was supposed to be this like slow makeup transition after the botch transportation, uh, kind of like in the 1986 film um with Jeff Goldblum as he slowly transforms into this like human fly thing. Um, but apparently it was pretty expensive to shoot, and they also weren't sure that the audience could handle it um, you know, in the 1950s, so they scrapped that idea. The most iconic scene in this entire movie, and I uh if anybody knows anything about the movie They Fly, they know this part, the end the ending. So the most iconic scene comes from, you know, it comes at the very end here. So they've they've they're settling out the concept of what happened, you know, the wife is done telling her story, and the police think that she's insane. You know, um, this is such a grand story, but they they really do think she's insane, and they're and they're arresting her to send her to an asylum, basically. And because, you know, they have the husband that is a male, basically he transports and his body's there, but his head is the fly and his one arm is the fly. So now there's a little fly flying around with a human head and a human arm, allegedly. So at the end of the movie, um Vincent Price does find this fly with the human head and human arm, and it's in the spider's web. And uh and uh, you know, he calls over the police captain to come see this thing so he can prove it. And the and the spy's in there while a spider starts coming down towards it, and you know, this the fly is yelling, help me, help me, and this really little tiny voice. And so Vincent Price is on there, and uh, the police captain, who was played by Herbert Marshall, uh, were both in the scene together, uh, but they struggled to get through the scene because that high-pitched voice that the fly made of him screaming, help me, help me, just it was just so silly, it made them both laugh. Now, I didn't go back to watch it. I I read this note. I didn't go back to watch it, but they say you can see like Vincent Price has like a small smile on his face at one point. So pretty interesting. Again, great movie. You guys should everybody should see this movie if you haven't already. Um, I've already said it. It stars Vincent Price. Um, I had to have discussed Vincent Price before. He is an absolute horror icon. Um I think House on Haunted Hill was was was a huge one for him, but he's he's had a ton. It was funny. I uh I was looking for horror movies on one of the streaming services, and it was like this string of like Vincent Price movies, like, oh yeah, I forgot about that. Oh, I forgot about that one too. Um, just a pile. This is like when he's older, because in his youth, they were kind of setting him up as like a dashing leading man because he's like a tall, mysterious kind of guy. He has 210 acting credits to his name on IMDB. Uh, his career was from 1938 to 1993. I mean, that is a career span. Personally, I loved him in a non-horror role. Um, one of my favorite roles for him was Richelieu in um The Three Musketeers in 1948. But he's also great as Baca uh from the Ten Commandments. Um, are you a master builder or a master butcher? Yeah, Baca is great. We will be getting into um more than surprise movies as as this as my uh if I keep doing more as I keep doing more podcasts. So there uh Kathleen Freeman, great character actor, also. She did a lot of voice work as well as acting movies. She has 300 acting credits on IMDb. It's like one of these things where you've seen her in something. She played the housekeeper in this. And she again, you've seen her in something. I liked her most. She's she's again, it's hard to, it's actually hard to pick a favorite for her because she, again, just plays small roles usually, but she just is great in them. Uh, she was um she was in a uh John Wayne movie uh North to Alaska, where she plays like a Norwegian wife, a real, you know, ball buster kind of kind of woman. Um she was in Support Your Local Sheriff and Support Your Local Gunfighter. I love both those movies. She's great in both of them. Um, again, small parts, but she does great. She must this must be like one of those things that's like we need a woman to do this. It's not much, but it's she's gotta be great. And they just go get Kathleen Freeman. I mean, not anymore, but they used to go get Kathleen Freeman. Most of the other actors in there really didn't do a whole lot, but uh um hey, yeah, Vince Price, Kathleen Freeman. What else what else did you need? So again, see the movie if you get a chance. You'll have to rent or buy it on Prime. But uh, if you're gonna go the streaming service way, but yes, please do. So, movie number two for season one, episode 29, is the movie Mimic from 1997. This is another one where you'd have to rent or buy it on Prime. You know, all the streaming services out there, why do you have to rent or buy on Prime so often? Production companies, Dimension Films, Baltimore Pictures, and Miramax. So this thing had some backing. Director was Guillermo del Toro. Guillermo of the bull. The writers were Donald A. Wolheim, Matthew Robbins, and Guillermo Del Toro. It stars Mira Cervino, Jeremy Northam, and Alexander Goodwin. So the plot. Three years ago, entomologist Dr. Susan Tyler genetically created an insect to kill cockroaches carrying a virulent disease. Whoop that could- Oh, the name of the name of the one that they created was called Janice. That's not part of the plot. I'm just adding that in there. Now the insects are out to destroy their only predator. Mankind. And not the professional wrestler mankind. It means like all of man. That's pretty accurate. Uh, why this movie is just following the uh the insect theme. How did I see it? I feel I rented this on VHS. There was a point where, well, let's see, this is 97, so could it have been DVD? Probably not. It got to a point, like I've seen a lot of horror movies, obviously. It gets to a point where I used to go into the local place to rent movies and just go to the horror section and find something I haven't seen. And I think that's how this happened. I was like, ah, this looks interesting, and just got it. Favorite kill, I really don't have one. It's bugs killing people. Yeah. Giant bugs, anyway. Really big, like giant human-sized bugs. That's why they're mimic because it can mimic and kind of look like a guy wearing a trench coat. So the plot is pretty accurate. Uh, people are being killed. Uh, turns out there's a mutated version of this Janus cockroach that's out there. And um apparently insects don't have lungs, and this one developed lungs, so it was able to grow because it had lungs and became like human size. Um, again, it also has the ability to look like like kind of a man in an overcoat, if you're like a quick glance or at a distance. It is a good movie. I think it has a very solid plot and story. I think the actors and director really pulled it off. Like, um, you know, sometimes talent will make a so-so movie great, and and maybe that's what this did, because there are a bunch of sequels and they're they're terrible. Um, this was inspired by a short story of the same name by award-winning science fiction author Donald A. Walheim in 1942 about insects that naturally evolved to mimic humans or man-made objects. Wow, 1942, gosh, is that the right date? I have to check that out. So, you know, when you watch horror movies, and I realize that they're all made up and fake and whatnot, and and um like sometimes I try to take this realistic view and and unpopular view. In the the shark episode I did before in the movie below, where the you know there's people trapped, and and the one guy's like gonna sacrifice himself and dive and swim the other direction so the other ones can can get away. You know, he's gonna draw the shark towards him to get killed. And then the idiots like don't do this, they sacrificed himself for nothing. Like that kind of stuff bothers me. But in this movie, the writers, you know, really when a person was sacrificing themselves, like the other people did take advantage of it, which makes me feel good inside. Because I would hope that to be true. I would hope that if I was sacrificing myself so six other people could live, that those six other people actually escaped and lived versus standing there yelling at me, no, no, don't do it. Oh god, no, while I'm getting killed, and they're just standing there not doing anything. Gosh, that bugs me. It's lazy writing, which bugs me over the perceived stupidity of the people in the movie. I'll get off my soapbox now. I think, and I I kind of alluded to this before. I I wonder if this movie would be as good without the, you know, the stars that were in it, the, you know, what you got um from the from the actors themselves, you know. Because this is, I mean, if you think about it, it's it's it's outrageous the the way they bring it out and and some of the things you do. But the actors, you know, they they pull it off, and and and and that's what they're there to do, make the story real for you. Um Mira Servina's in it. Um I guess she's a terrific actress. I guess I never saw her in anything that was like serious acting. Not get her on, she'd be she's gotta act. But I I never saw her in, she was I think I don't know if she I think she won an Oscar for a movie I haven't seen and probably won't, because it was probably from the 90s. So I had my chance and didn't see it on purpose. Um she's the daughter of a great character actor called Paul Sorvino. If you've seen any movie from I'm gonna say the 70s through, I only guessed pretty recently. Um, if there's a mobster in it, there's a chance it's Paul Servino or he's part of the mob's crew. He's really good at playing like mob parts. Um Mira Cervino herself has 124 acting credits on IMTB, and uh she was probably bigger in the 90s um than of course she is today. I mean, here we are 30 plus years later. Jerry Jeremy Northam. Uh Jeremy Northam, again, he's been in it in a bunch of stuff. He's kind of has like that everyman face. Like you could you could put him anywhere and he'll just kind of fit because he doesn't stick out. You know, there's nothing about him that's especially special, which sounds mean. But sometimes, you know, if you're a character actor, that's a that's a great way to be. Like you fit, you fit everywhere, and that's kind of how his look is. Charles S. Dutton is also in this, another great character actor. Um, I remember first seeing him in a series called Rock, and he has 110 acting credits to his name, and and uh he always does an amazing job. He's he's a great actor. There's also Giancarlo Giannini, another fine actor, started acting in 1965, an Italian actor. Um, it was something interesting. He does Italian dubbing for American movies. Like, so when they're gonna have like an Italian version and they dub Italian, he does some of the voice work for that. I think that's pretty neat. Um, he's got 29 dubbing credits and 183 acting credits, so this guy stays busy. Josh Brolin's also in the damn movie, which surprised me. He's a young punk, really. Um, he plays uh a detective in the movie, uh, son of James Brolin. Um got to start with the Goonies, which is a fantastic movie. He kind of just kind of rambled through a career, and like recently, you know, last 10 years or so, he's probably lived up to, you know, what everybody thought he was gonna be. Weirdly enough, Norman Redis is also in this. Um, small part that he played before being on The Walking Dead. And then you got to talk about the director, Guillermo Del Toro. This was his first English movie as a director. Um, right after this, he went on to uh do uh many English projects as a director, writer, and producer, mostly in the horror and sci-fi genre. I think my favorite movie of his is actually specific, Pacific Rim, um, which is weird. Um again, a lot of people think of him as totally horror, but he's not. He does a lot of like geeky sci-fi stuff, too, so that's pretty cool. So um I will move on to uh movie number three, season one, episode 29. And this movie's called Mosquito, it's from 1994. You can find it on AMC Plus or rent or buy it on Prime. Production company Acme Films Limited, and either Antibase or Antibes, Inc., depending if it's supposed to be Spanish or not. And Excalibur Motion Pictures. Excuse me. Director is Gary Jones. The writers are Tom Cheney, Steve Hodge, and Gary Jones, starring Gunnar Hansen, Ron Ashton, and Steve Dixon. A violent massacre caused by human-sized mosquitoes forces the lone survivors to band together in a fight for survival as mosquitoes continue their onslaught. Yeah, pretty close. Pretty close to the plot. Why this movie, again, insect horror movie. This is one of them. This is a uh micro-budget, you know, independent movie. How did I see it? Um, I know I watched this for the first time a few years ago. Again, just trying to watch horror movies I hadn't seen before. My favorite kill. I will say that my favorite one was in the beginning of this movie. So there's a couple getting intimate in a tent, and the guy goes out to relieve himself and gets killed by the mosquito. And then the mosquito comes into the tent, and the the woman's laying there naked, and she sees a mosquito and she turns around, tries to crawl away, and the mosquito stings her right in her butt. It really more funny than anything else. So I saw this, and it looked like something crashed in the earth. I thought it was a meteor, and landed near mosquito eggs, and and the mosquitoes get affected or radiated, whatever it is. But I just read somewhere that the mosquitoes fed off of an alien pod that crashed. If that's what it was, then I wasn't paying close enough attention. It could be. I'm not saying that's not what happened. Um, but I must not have been paying close enough attention then. This is a kind of a fun and silly movie. It is um entertaining, you know, as a bee horror movie. I think it achieved its goals of what they wanted it to be, which is just a fun movie, a fun bee horror movie, like you would see, you know, back in the 50s and whatnot. I think they they they they got that. It's funny, I read, I was reading, um, so their special effects um person was Matt Hunley. But apparently he was not the first choice to do the special effects for the film. Halfway through the originals, halfway through the movie, or halfway through the work, halfway through the job, whatever it is, the original special effects artist said, I'll be right back, I'm gonna go get a pack of smokes, and he never came back. And I will say, kudos to that guy. How many other people out there would just be like got fed up at work and would just want to say, Hey, I'll be right back, I'm just gonna get a pack of smokes and then never go back to the job. Man, I would love to do that. So in the movie, um, one of the guys, Gunnar Hansen, picks up a chainsaw and kills a mosquito with it. Um, Hansen played Leatherface in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre from 1974. So I like when comedy's clever or where they do throwbacks and it's like something for nerds out there, you know, Easter eggs for nerds. Like, haha. Like a normal person watching this movie would not understand why that was funny. The practical effects in this movie are pretty good. The like the production values are good, even the acting's not terrible. It's just it is what it is, it's a B HR movie. So, again, I did mention that uh Gunnar Hansen was in this. He got top billing, probably because he played Leatherface in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But of course, you wouldn't recognize him because he's wearing another human's face, so you wouldn't recognize him. Um ever since Texas Chainsaw Massacre, he's basically just done B-hor movies since then. Um, and again, it's just the thing of having Gunnar Hansen in your movie, a horror movie, when he was in such an iconic movie in such an iconic role. He's a big guy, but he I wouldn't say he's much of an actor. And then you also had Ron Ashton, um, who, if you watch the movies, obviously is not an actor. Uh, he was the original guitarist for the zombies, as in Iggy Pop and the Zombies. And he continued to play death uh play guitar up until his death. So he's really more of a guitar player that did some movies than an actor. And quite frankly, there was no one else of real consequence in this movie. It was a low-budget B-Horror movie, and and that's really it. That was what it was. So, but it but it was entertaining. I I would say see all three of these movies, no doubt. Um, The Fly is iconic, Mimic is really good, and Mosquito is just fun. It really was. So, my next episode, which would be episode 30, which would be kind of neat. I don't know why 30 is neat, but it is. Um, I'm trying for a guest. Um, I've heard good things of the the only the only previous time I had a guest, I heard good things. So I'm trying to get another guest for this show. Um, we're in discussion. There was not a no, but it was not a yes. I'm not a hundred percent sure what to call the theme, so I'm just gonna leave it at that. And uh say once again, if you enjoyed your show, tell your friends. If you didn't enjoy it, tell your enemies. And other than that, have fun.