Good start, but then it gets ruined

Admirable film.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The movie was based on a book which was far better then this movie. Direction in this film is the fail. When people get attacked by the bugs they just scream and stand there, instead of grabbing bugs off theur body. It just looks phony. I had read the book before seeing the film and it was a classic scary scifi. The movie was too cheap to have careful direction. Same Directer ruined other books to film. Never uderstood why he was picked for some potentially good films.Can't blame actors when director is terrible.

Released in 1975, "Bug" stars Bradford Dillman as a professor who becomes fascinated by a fire-starting breed of large cockroaches after they're released from their subterranean habitat via an earthquake. As he descends into madness he descends into hell.The movie starts off good with an earthquake at a church in rural Southern California and the ensuing mystery of the fire-starting roaches, but the second half becomes draggy as it largely consists of the professor going recluse as he studies the roaches and performs an experiment. While I didn't find the roaches particularly scary, they're ugly and depicted in a creepy manner. The most memorable part of the movie occurs near the end when the bugs do something on the wall, which utterly freaks out the professor (and the viewer). The climax is pretty good too, but also unsatisfactory.On the female front, Jamie Smith-Jackson (Alice from 1973's "Go Ask Alice") earns top awards, lookin' great in a pair of jeans, and Patty McCormack (Sylvia) gets second place. Unfortunately, not enough is done with 'em.The "Brady Bunch" reference refers to the fact that the professor's house is the re-painted and re-arranged house-set of that popular early 70s' show. I was expecting Alice to appear in the kitchen at any moment! Needless to say, if you need a 70s' fix "Bug" fills the bill.The film runs 99 minutes and was shot in Riverside, California, and Paramount Studios.GRADE: C+

I saw this movie one late night, and I found it very interesting. "Bug" sort of reminded me back in 1954 where man created the "killer bees", but it's not a movie about bees, it's about killer roaches from the Earth. In a small California town, it gets rocked by an earthquake. Out of the crack, there are these mutant roaches that are strangely huge for their size. They don't eat anything, they are very tough. Worst of all, these critters can start fires. They burned some houses down, they killed a father and son in their truck. They caused a young woman to go deaf in her ear. These things are a menace! The latest pesticide wouldn't do anything to quell the problem. Despite that, a local college professor(Bradford Dillman) takes a high interest into these malevolent creatures. He would study them closely and carefully. But when his wife was killed by the firebug, his obsession get very extreme. He would study one, mate it with a regular size cockroach, because they don't copulate with each other. After that, the new breed of roaches become carnivorous. Since the earlier ones ate only ashes, the new breed are even worse. This obsession drove him over the edge, and paid a very high price. Don't forget the bug spray with this movie, pest control will never be the same! 2.5 out of 5 stars

An earthquake unleashes a lethal mutant strain of large prehistoric cockroaches with the ability to start fires. The nasty little critters run amok in a sleepy small desert town. Flaky entomologist James Parmiter (a marvelously manic performance by Bradford Dillman) becomes obsessed with saving them. Director Jeannot Szwarc maintains a snappy pace throughout and ably creates an intriguing creepy atmosphere in the eerie opening third before pulling out all the stops with a gloriously wild'n'wacky conclusion. The admirably sincere acting from a sturdy cast of familiar faces qualifies as another substantial asset: Alan Fudge as Parmiter's brainy colleague Mark Ross, Joanna Miles as Parmiter's lovely wife Carrie, Jesse Vint as rugged farmer Tom Tucker, Patty McCormack as Carrie's best gal pal Sylvia, and Jamie Smith-Jackson as Tom's fretful sister Norma. Moreover, this film's shockingly harsh violence pushes the PG rating to its utmost limit: a cute little kitty cat gets torched, one of the bugs blows up something messy, and both Miles and McCormack meet hideously brutal incendiary ends. Michael Hugo's polished cinematography and Charles Fox's wonky droning synthesizer score are solid and effective. The last film produced by legendary schlockmeister William Castle, "Bug" overall rates as a hugely enjoyable nature-gone-wrong fright feature.