BUG - I watched this for the first time yesterday on Netflix. Being a sort-of seventies horror completest, it was nice to catch something that had slipped through my flix net. 'Bug' is basically about some fire-causing insects and the effect they have on a small town. It features a standard set-up in many ways - aforementioned small town, scientist investigates, air of encroaching chaos. What interested me was the way in which 'Bug' evolved from playing out the usual sci-fi horror 'nature attacks' scenario into something darker and more intense. The last thirty or forty minutes show the scientist in isolation as he experiments on the bugs. The atmosphere becomes progressively more claustrophobic and angst ridden. The bugs start to communicate with scientist guy, and it feels like maybe a supernatural undercurrent creeps in. These scenes are full of foreboding, and leave a genuinely disturbing aftertaste. I liked 'Bug'. It met many of my requirements aesthetically too, with plenty of that seventies 'thing' in evidence ( I suppose in this case, 'thing' is best summed up by the TV movie-like feel of 'Bug' in places crossed with the jarring avant-garde electronic score.)
RATS: NIGHT OF TERROR - I've said stuff about this before, but hey, I'm still on a bit of a Mattei kick. This is one of his more competent films, but don't let that put you off. It still has a lot of charm. In fact, 'charm' is, realistically, about the only thing it has got. Mattei films are almost as stylistically identifiable as Argento's or Fulci's. That doesn't just rest on what he's infamous for - basically, nicking bits of other movies and stapling them together. Rather, there's an atmosphere - it's simultaneously leaden and hysterical. That's what's going on here. I always come back to 'Rats: Night Of Terror'. It's kind of up there with 'Videodrome', 'Black Christmas' and 'The Slayer' when it comes to movies I just can't seem to put down (I very rarely watch anything else more than once). In the case of 'Rats', it's on repeat partly because I can never remember what happens in it. And that's because, not a lot does happen really. There's a bunch of Kajagoogoo Mad Max pantomime tossers in a deserted house, and some rats, and some wandering around, and some shouting, and a few schlocky death scenes, some flame throwers, then more wandering around. Until THAT ending. But with this stuff, it's all about the feel, the tone, again, the sense in which it manages to be boring and delirious at the same time. A lot of it comes from the acting - I wonder whether Bruno primed his cast to overreact, to erupt in sudden spurts of character illogic, to mug like loons. Everywhere is a sort of wooden mania. Then there's the eighties thing, the bad fashion and the synth score. It's all very unreal, like being surrounded by people who are trying to pretend they're not clowns. In fact, the whole experience of seeing 'Rats' is like being faced with a strange riddle. Well, I've just finished watching it now, and until I can really answer the questions "What did that do for me? Who knows what lies behind the mystery of 'Rats'?", doubtless I'll see it again (and again) soon.
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