GG
Giuliano Giacomelli
•In a laboratory in the Midwest, genetic experiments on locusts are supposedly aimed at combating and eliminating all insects harmful to agriculture. The experiment does not go as planned, and the genetically modified locusts escape the scientists' control and begin to wander through the countryside, sowing death and destruction. It will be up to the entomologist Colt and his companion Vicky to face the fearsome locusts and restore the situation to normal. There is not much to say about this bland and useless film on the theme of beast movies, because it is enough to read the basic plot and make it known that it is a TV product to make the viewer understand the level and quality of the film in question. "Locusts: The Eighth Plague" represents the emblem of uselessness, a film that has no purpose in life and it is not clear why films of this kind continue to be produced. We are now used to seeing everything; especially if you follow the home video market, you can notice that the percentage of bad films is high, and therefore we are no longer surprised to see highly mediocre films distributed; but what we continue to think and ask ourselves is why people continue to invest precious money in the production of films like "Locusts: The Eighth Plague", films that are resounding flops even before they are born and will never be able to achieve sufficient success. The film, directed by Ian Gilmour (more active as an actor than as a director) in 2005, decides to unsettle the viewer by bringing in the locusts that, with the exception of the famous biblical plague, have really little and nothing of "unsettling" and therefore, the idea of making a TV beast movie entirely dedicated to locusts will appear even more as a futile production whose interest is zero. Whether it's bees, snakes, or spiders, the story remains the same, which would make one think that it is always the same script that is reused by making only some miserable modifications: there is always the government experiment that, by chance, will always end up failing, there is always some genetically modified animal/insect (which then one does not understand why, but as a side effect there is always an increase in aggressiveness) and the usual two scientist protagonists, always a man and a woman and almost always good-looking, who are destined to take the reins of the situation and bring everything back to normal. Well, it is enough to resort to this type of cinematic stereotype to describe in detail the film "Locusts: The Eighth Plague", a film that, even before being seen, is already known how it will evolve and how it will tend to conclude. On everything else, it is advisable to draw a charitable veil: approximate actors who offer questionable performances, anonymous direction and perfectly at ease with the TV style, and crude and forgettable special effects (the locusts are sometimes made with a CGI that is at least horrible, sometimes with more appreciable puppets). Notable is the presence of some sporadic and crude bloody scenes (something otherwise very strange for a TV film of this kind) which, however, instead of making the horror fan happy, can only depress because of their banality and gratuity (like the sequence in which a locust pierces, like a projectile, the neck of a guy at the amusement park). In conclusion, "Locusts: The Eighth Plague" is not only a bad film, because before being so it is above all useless. A film undoubtedly to be avoided and/or forgotten.