Jeannot Szwarc

(In French, On Cable TV, July 2021) The ghost of legendary writer-director-producer-huckster William Castle hovers cannily over 1975’s Bug — the final film he oversaw as a writer and producer, although directing duties fell to Jeannot Szwarc. The mercenary intent couldn’t be more obvious here, as the film is based on the fear of insects and does whatever it can to press that button over and over again. Fear of cockroaches? Not enough. How about fire-creating cockroaches unearthed from the underground thanks to an earthquake? No, better yet: By the time the film ends, we have sentient flying pyromaniac cockroaches! Thanks to the inches-big bugs playing the fire-starting roaches, the film is suitably gross (albeit not quite as much as Squirm) but there isn’t much more to it — the mad-scientist shtick is ridiculous, and the film doesn’t quite know what to do to take advantage of its own potential. It almost goes without saying that the whole killer-bug thing is badly handled and never believable, almost as if everyone involved in the film from Castle on down relied on the idea of bugs being scary and disgusting as being equivalent to doing the work in making them scary and disgusting. The paradox may be that however dull Bug is in execution, it’s still striking enough in bits and pieces and individual images (such as the woman set on fire in her kitchen) to be somewhat memorable even if the film itself isn’t so good. Why am I hearing a showman’s cackle from beyond the grave?