All Rise...

Judge Patrick Naugle is a pest, when he wants to be.

The Charge

Millions of years of evolution have just become mankind's worst nightmare.

The Case

When a flying saucer from outer space crash lands on earth, a small mosquito bite on an alien arm turns into terror of gigantic proportions! Soon a band of frightened survivors—including tourists Ray (Tim Lovelace, Hatred of a Minute) and his girlfriend Megan (Rachel Loiselle, Stone), a few rash bank robbers (including The Texas Chain Saw Massacre's original Leatherface, Gunnar Hansen), among others—are forced to defend themselves from mosquitos the size of vultures through the backwoods of a National Park!

Gary Jones' cult classic Mosquito is not a movie of subtleties. As the film opens an alien aircraft has crash landed on earth (an extra-terrestrial hand flops out of the ship in an obvious homage to H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds") and a small mosquito takes a drink from its body. Soon bugs the size of giant birds are traversing the skies and sucking on the bodies of helpless human stock characters.

What I've just described is exactly all that Mosquito is. Here's a movie that doesn't include a single interesting character or plot device other than "killer mosquitos" (which is just a variation on all those giant bug movies from the 1950s). The film skips from scene to scene of people having sex, drinking, and generally acting obnoxious to those same people being attacked by giant killer mosquitos. Wash, rinse, repeat. Have you ever wanted to see a naked woman's rear end speared by a mutant skeeter's labrum? Me neither, but here it is anyway.

The actors are all forgettable save for Gunnar Hansen (who's claim to fame of playing Leatherface in the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre had worn pretty thin by this point) as a bank robber, and he's memorable only because, hey look, that's the guy who once played an iconic movie monster! Everyone else seems to be reading from cue cards or auditioning for a local car dealership commercial. Most of the actors give it their best shot, which isn't good enough by a mile.

For years Mosquito was out-of-print title and highly sought after by B-movie collectors. Why? I'm not exactly sure. The film doesn't play very well twenty years later; it's $200,000 budget looks like most of the money went to the actors (which in and of itself was a bad choice) with truly terrible effects work. The mosquito monsters look like they were constructed out of rubber and PVC piping in someone's home studio, which takes the viewer out of the film. Surprisingly, the filmmakers even utilize the process of stop motion, which makes me think Ray Harryhausen is spinning in his grave like a biplane propeller at top speed.

Mosquito (Blu-ray) 20th Anniversary Edition is presented in 1.78:1 widescreen in 1080p high definition (even though it was originally filmed in 1.85:1). Inside the case is a card that informs the viewer about the transfer which includes some out of focus shots inherent to the production, not Synapses's transfer. Either way, I wouldn't say that Mosquito features a great looking picture. Sometimes it appears in good shape, other times it's soft and out of focus. Be it the fault of the production or the transfer, this is only a passable version of the film. The soundtrack is presented in DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 Surround in English. The audio fares better than the video portion with a robust and aggressive sound mix. Lots of buzzing sounds and creepy music envelops the viewer in this 7.1 mix. Also included are English, French, Spanish, and German subtitles, as well as a 2.0 Stereo mix.

Extra features include a relatively interesting commentary track with co-writer/director Gary Jones, co-writer/director of photography Tom Chaney, and producer David Thiry, an hour and a half documentary on the film ("Bugging Out"), a few deleted or extended scenes, some vintage behind-the-scenes video footage, a gallery, and a theatrical trailer.

On the level of purely terrible B-movie filmmaking, Mosquito delivers. On every other level, it's a big failure.

The Verdict

This one kinda sucks…pun intended.

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