"Bug" is a scaly, low-grade little thriller meant to scare 8-year-olds (and grown-ups with an insect phobia prone to squirming). This final project from famed movie producer William Castle is a slapdash effort, sadly, with a small community in the path of mutant roaches after an earthquake. Based on the book "The Hephaestus Plague" by Thomas Page, who also penned the screenplay with help from Castle, the chills are all in the special effects, the characters being of no interest whatsoever. The bugs are satisfyingly disgusting, causing fire and panic (and one hysterical death on the former "Brady Bunch" set at Paramount). Aficionados of gross-out cinema will up the rating a notch, while purveyors of camp will enjoy the wooden performances by Bradford Dillman as a local professor and Joanna Miles as his wife. Lots of close-ups of bug guts, yet the production values are disappointingly cheapjack, a depressing reminder of better days at the Castle horror factory. *1/2 from ****
Review of Bug
