PopHorror Let's Get Scared
It was nearly ten years ago when I first picked up a copy of Bug in the Five For $20 bin at Blockbuster. Ah, Blockbuster. I found so many lesser known horror gems there over the years! Bug was one of them. It’s hard to believe it’s been ten years already, but the film made its theatrical debut on May 25, 2007.
Help us celebrate 10 years with with 10 things you might not know about this modern horror classic…
1. William Friedkin directed it. Yes, that William Friedkin. The same guy who won an academy award for The French Connection and brought you an all time horror classic, The Exorcist.
2. It’s based on the play Bug by Tracy Letts, who also wrote the screenplay for the film. Tracy Letts and William Friedkin would collaborate again four years later on Killer Joe.
3. Michael Shannon also starred in the play in Chicago. It was a logical choice for him to reprise the role of Peter Evans in the film version.
4. Bug received an F CinemaScore rating. That’s really weird, since this movie is great! Other movies that received an F CinemaScore: The Wicker Man (2006), Wolf Creek, The Box, Silent House, The Devil Inside, and Solaris (Clooney version). You get the picture. Yuck.
5. Roger Ebert loved it. Yes, despite the F CinemaScore, Roger Ebert, one of the all time great horror poo-pooers enjoyed Bug and rated it 3.5/4 Stars. In his review he writes:
“William Friedkin’s latest film, Bug, begins as an ominous rumble of unease and builds to a shriek. The last 20 minutes are searingly intense: A paranoid personality finds its mate, and they race each other into madness.”
6. The movie is set at a hotel in Oklahoma, but the hotel set is actually a Louisiana High School Gym according to William Friedkin in a 2007 interview with ComingSoon.net.
7. The movie took 21 days to shoot. It was originally slated for 20 days, but the crew had to come back for an additional day because there was a fire on the set. Friedkin says there are often fires involved when he shoots a film.
8. Friedkin won a FIPRESCI Award for his direction at Cannes for the film. FIPRESCI is the International Federation of Film Critics. The acronym is short for Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique.
9. According to Wikipedia, the film was shot on a $4 million budget and brought in $8.1 million at the Box Office. Opening weekend, Bug finished 4th behind Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Shrek the Third, and Spider-Man 3. Rough competition!
10. The song that plays over the end credits is Disappearing Act by Chris Cornell. R.I.P. Chris. Gone too soon.
If you’ve never seen it, that’s unfortunate because Bug is surprisingly hard to find. I guess there’s never a Blockbuster around when you need one! It’s not streaming anywhere at this time, it’s never been released on Blu-ray, and the DVD is in limited stock over at Amazon. Money well spent!
How many Bug fans do we have? Sound off in the comments!
