Creepy Crawlers (2000)

Bug Bites...

Dr. Cahill (Thomas Calabro) is a recovering alcoholic. After being unable to perform a surgery, he is told to take a "vacation" by his superior. This leads him to a small island, where he hopes to settle in and relax. Instead, the locals, led by two brothers (one played by John Savage), cause nothing but problems for Cahill. Meanwhile, a growing legion of biting, killer cockroaches have arrived on the island, ready to destroy all in their path! Dr. Cahill, with the help of the sheriff (Dean Stockwell!) and the gal from the general store (Kristen Dalton), must find out what's been killing the townsfolk before it's too late. CC is a solid little grabber w/ enough twists and jolts to keep things running on all six legs. There's even some gory goo that's surprising for a PG-13 movie! Loved it... July 13, 2007

Creeping Crawling Terror

A small island in Maine experiences terror once an infested body washes up on shore. The Island's newest resident is a doctor in need of getting away. Unfortunately the Doc has made enemies just by buying the wrong house. As tempers flare among the residents the doctor stumbles upon the hidden problem growing on the island.

The Island is now home to a horrible bug that lays its eggs in small mammals. Now they have turned toward man as a host. Unfortunately once the residents are finally confronted with the reality it is too late to do more than run. But it is hard to run far when you are surrounded by water and the next ferry isn't due for a week.

Very realistic looking bugs really add to the creep factor in this film. Some pretty decent acting is also present and you will probably recognize a few faces (and not just Dean Stockwell as the Sheriff). Parts of the movie look like it could lead to an interesting sequel (if handled right) while the existing ending adds just the right touch. If you like swarms of bugs in your movies then this one is right up your alley. December 16, 2005

Made My Skin Crawl!!

This movie is extremely creepy. Definitely worth watching. It WILL make your skin crawl! Well worth what it is selling for on Amazon. June 28, 2005

Strong Story Line + Scary FX = Well Done Horror Flick

THE NEST is one of those horror movies that are light years ahead of their better publicized yet less competently crafted brethren. What makes a horror film memorable is not just well-designed gory effects (although that helps). What does make the difference is the same quality that attracts or disinterests moviegoers with all films: does the audience connect to the characters in a way as to make us care about their fates? In THEY NEST, director Ellery Elkayem presents the hero Dr. Ben Cahill (Thomas Calabro) as a drunken sot of a surgeon who loses his job as an attending physician at a prestigious hospital and heads to a small island off the coast of Maine to sober up. Cahill is a good but flawed man who clearly wants to reset his moral compass. On the island he meets the lovely Nell (Kristin Hocking Dalton), with whom he is allowed to gradually form a romantic tie. The Big Bug Menace of this movie is not big at all. They are ordinary looking Africanized pincer wielding cockroaches that show their menace only when covering the ground in a rapidly moving insect blanket of pincer snapping lethality. These bugs breed, attack en masse, and lay their eggs within a human host so that their emergence smacks of the stomach bursting scene from ALIEN. The bugs seem to operate in a hive mentality; thus, they function as a collective threat to humanity.

Dean Stockwell as the local sheriff and John Savage as the hick lobsterman are surprisingly effective in backup roles. Calabro and Hocking-Dalton gradually show a growing love interest, with Hocking-Dalton taking the lead in romance. The ending is a let-down. How many times have we seen the last of the Bug Eyed Monsters get killed only to see a lone survivor fly or crawl off to repeat the process? Still, the scenes in which Stockwell and Savage try to swat away a rolling carpet of predator bugs must surely cause the audience to peek into that shoe before they put it on. Recommended. November 6, 2004

THIS WILL REALLY BUG YOU!!!

CREEPY CRAWLERS is the first movie in some time that made my squirm and my skin crawl; with an effective use of silence and eerily atmospheric music and some nifty camerawork, this movie really gets under your skin.
It opens with some shipmates duct taping a fellow matey, and then dumping him overboard; the body comes to rest on a sleepy little island in Maine. A surgeon (Thomas Calabro, in a marvelously controlled and humorus performance) has recently purchased a house on this island. It needs fixing up, and the only one who can help out electically is a nasty feller named Jack Wald (played with venomous relish by John Savage). Seems like Wald and his brother should have inherited the house, but since their pappy didnt pay his taxes, the house went up for sale and Calabro bought it. Meanwhile, the cockroaches are swarming and just dying to breed in their human hosts.
There are some incredibly creepy scenes, and when the bugs sprout wings, look out.
This is a great "little" movie, full of dark humor and nasty, nasty bugs!
Buy you some Raid afore you watch it, ye heah? February 28, 2004

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