Millennial Crap: They Crawl

Bugs, my god.  Today's film is They Crawl, yet another film I discovered under dubious circumstances.  Given how I found out about it, there was no way that I was going to love it.  What's the story?  Well, this DTV film is made up of lots of Stock Footage.  Yes, this 2002 film uses Stock Footage dating back to the mid-1980s!  No, really.  There's an actual film here, but it's hard to look past the cheapness.  Said plot involves killer cockroaches, a possible Cult and lots of re-used explosions.  It features one major Star on the precipice between the lowest point of his career and his revival.  To find out how silly this gets, which footage is stolen and who is sad enough to appear in this mess, read on...

In the Intro, a man seems to get possessed by something and starts driving his bus erratically.

Three things to note here:
1. Their footage (the Driver) barely blends with the Stock Footage (everything else).
2. They actually use shots of BOTH Buses, leading to 'his bus' changing name several times.
3. This is from Red Heat.  Really- You stole from that movie?

A mysterious Hacker and Drug Addict is attacked in his Apartment.  He's blown up, leading to Stock Footage #2.

If it looks familiar, it's from Rush Hour.  Well, at least we're in the 1990's now.  Yea?

Our lead is this guy, who is the brother of the guy just killed.  His performance is very lackadaisical and he mostly just looks like this.

Since this plot- which involves controlled cockroaches- is so unimportant, let's cover some of the odd casting bits.

Jack Deth is here playing an Exterminator.  He barely does anything and gets killed by CG bugs.  Darn.

The big star: a barely-coherent Mickey Rourke.  He basically has one scene where he acts suspicious and then runs off (where it's mostly his double anyhow).  Thanks for coming.  I'll see you when in better films in a few years.

Our other lead is a lady Detective in the LAPD.  She investigates the mysterious deaths and its ties to a cult.  When they get close, they send a unit to find a source.

This leads to Stock Footage #3: the exploding house from Last Action Hero.  Sure, why not?

It all leads up to our heroes confronting the villains, who plan to sell their controlled-cockroaches like military weapons.  Oh and they pretty much act like Bond villains here.  Oy vey.

With the main villains dead, we get some decent CG as, well, this thing comes about.  Just take it in.

In a truly-silly finale, they crash a moving truck into the creature, causing a giant explosion.  This is Stock Footage #4: Chain Reaction's city-destroying explosion (edited down).

The explosion is WAY too big for the guy to lightly jog away from, but why expect logic after a giant cockroach made out of other cockroaches.  The End.

It would be fitting to just re-use a summary paragraph here.  Of course, that would make me just as bad as them, so let's be better.  The film's plot is barely there and is just not good.  The only surprises are, well, there are none.  I take that back, actually.  I didn't see the Coroner- who's a Character Actor- being evil.  Granted- I really stopped caring about halfway through, so it is mostly my fault there.  Other than that, it's very 'paint by numbers.'  Nothing all that exciting or surprising happens.  If you didn't know about the Stock Footage beforehand, you might just get a feeling of Deja Vu.  I'm still amazed that this movie got made and released this way.  They licensed the footage, so it doesn't *seem* to be illegal.  The question is this: was it really cheaper to buy the footage?  It couldn't have been, could it?  If you want a cheesy film to watch, this one is pretty good.  There are far more interesting pieces of crap to watch though.  This movie kind of falls into that awkward middle-ground of crap.  Take us away, film that doesn't credit its Red Heat footage...

Next up, a movie that looks, sounds and smells familiar.  When in doubt, just blatantly rip off a classic!  Stay tuned...