 |
Mosquito by Gary Jones
List Price: $19.98Our Price: $6.49You Save: $13.49 (68%)Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: VHS Video See more movie releases
Buy this VHS video movie at online store in your country
Canada
VHS Tape Cover InformationActor: Gunnar Hansen (II), Rachel Loiselle, Ron Asheton, Steve Dixon, Tim Lovelace Director: Gary Jones Edition: VHS Tape Format: Color, NTSC Running Time: 92 minutes Release Date: 1995-05-30 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Publisher: Hemdale Home Video Studio: Hemdale Home Video
VHS Movie Reviews of MosquitoMovie Review: "The late show doesn't get any better than this!" Summary: 5 StarsWhat is your personal criteria for determining what constitutes a "good" horror movie? Is it one that has a big budget? Sensational special effects? A cast made up of big name Hollywood stars or a really well-written, intelligent script that's brilliantly acted and meticuously directed? Yeah, all of that would be nice, but I live in the real world and ultimately all I really ask from any movie is that I enjoy it. Now there are many people who would label movies that lacked those sterling qualities but which they still found enjoyable as "guilty pleasures." Not me, no guilt here. If I enjoyed them, I enjoyed them and all that that entails. So here it goes. I will stand up straight and tall and look everyone right in the general direction of their eyes and declare firmly: I really like MOSQUITO, and, yes, I think its a good movie! There. Its out in the open.
Its acting, script, direction, etc. are all adequate for a movie of this type, but even if they weren't--so what? It still meets MY basic criteria. I enjoyed it! MOSQUITO is a genial and likeable film that succeeds as no big bug film has before or since because its just good natured fun with some nice special effects thrown in on the side. Filmed in the mid 1990's deep in the heart of Michigan (probably for inspiration of the insectoid variety) this little flick is helped along by a cast the includes Gunnar Hansen and Ron Asheton,who I'm told is famous as a proto-punk musician with The Stooges although I know him from his role in FROSTBITER, LEGEND OF WENDIGO, an indie that was released by Troma. For being a low budget production it opens with an effective display of special effects as an orbiting spaceship dispatches a smaller vehicle towards planet earth. This smaller craft crashes and an alien with a physiognomy reminiscent of those in Gene Barry's WAR OF THE WORLDS emerges from the ship only to die before we can see more than an appendage. Unfortunately a mosquito also spots the alien arm and zooms in for an exotic snack. Thus our movie begins.
Our victims du jour include Meg and her boyfriend Ray who are on their way to the State Park where Meg will start her new summer job as a ranger, Parks who was sent by the army to investigate what they believe to be a meteor crash the night before (in actuality, the alien ship), Hendricks the bumbling comic relief ranger (played by Ron Asheton), and a gang of bank robbers who are quickly whittled down to just one, Earl, played by Gunnar Hansen. In true horror film tradition all these characters squabble amongst themselves and try good naturedly to kill each other before FINALLY joining forces against the real threat--those lousy skeeters! Before the film ends our heroes pull a Romero in an old farm house, Gunnar Hanson has a touching reunion with a chainsaw,and we learn that a refrigerator can be your friend.
This is one of those films where even the evil-doers aren't all that bad, and half the fun is trying to guess who, if anyone is going to make it out alive. If you're one of those people who watches horror films, especially comedies, expecting them to make sense then you have my sympathies for you are missing out on all the fun in life. I've done my share of griping--see my review of I AM LEGEND, but that was a completely different kind of film made for a completely different purpose and should thus be held to a different standard than a film such as this. This is just plain fun.
Oh, don't let the dvd price put you off. If you have access to a VHS you can still get a tape for under $5.
There's also some cute stop motion bugs in addition to full size puppets.
MOSQUITO
Directed by Gary Jones
Original story by Gary Jones
Screenplay by Steve Hodge, Tom Chaney, and Gary Jones
Visual Effects Supervisor: Richard Jake Jacobson
Stop-Motion Animation: Animasaur Productions
CAST: Gunnar Hansen, Ron Asheton, Tim Lovelace, Rachel Loiselle, Steve
Dixon
Summary of MosquitoGet the Deep-Woods Off! It's a mosquito the size of a German shepherd, armed with a proboscis as big around as a carrot, which it jabs into various eye sockets, chests, thighs, and even butt-cheeks! When a UFO crashes into a swamp, swarms of these mutated, oversized bugs go out looking for victims. A hapless couple smacks one of the outsized insects (filled with what appears to be stewed tomatoes and cranberry sauce) with their car, disabling the auto and leaving them stranded. They soon hook up with a government scientist, run afoul of two half-wit militia types, commandeer an RV, and make a break for it. The uneasy allies eventually make it to a farmhouse where they board up the windows ? la Night of the Living Dead (or Assault on Precinct?13) to make a last stand against the marauding bloodsuckers. If it all sounds goofy, that's because it is. On the downside, the dialogue is rotten and the acting is all rather casual (except for the scientist, whose overacting makes up for the rest of the cast's slack performances). On the upside, there's no cheesy computer animation; it's all done with cheesy '60s-style miniatures and puppets instead. Horror fans will recognize Gunnar Hansen, Texas Chainsaw Massacre's Leatherface; he's even given a chance to do battle with the bloodthirsty bugs with his old weapon of choice, a 24-inch Homelite! Also, rock fans should notice Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton! Just don't take this big-bug saga too seriously (nobody involved does), keep an eye out for boom-mic shadows, shut down a few sections of your brain, and go with it. After all, this is the kind of movie that would have made it big on the drive-in circuit some 30?years ago. --Jerry Renshaw
|
 |