“You’re living science fact!”
An alien ship crash lands in a swamp in the wilderness. But that’s unimportant–giant mosquitoes! What about the aliens, you say? Who cares? Giant Mosquitoes! It’s too bad we never saw what happened when humans drank alien blood. Do they too become gigantic? I think we deserve an answer. Director Gary Jones’ “Mosquito” is pure mid-nineties STV junk, but damn is it a good time. If you’re going to name a movie “Mosquito” (and it’s not a metaphor) you’d better serve us some giant mosquitoes, and director Jones supplies the goods.
The mosquitoes appear in various creative methods including stop motion, animation, bad animatronics, and obvious flying apparatuses, all with varying results of creativity. That thankfully doesn’t detract from what is just downright hilarious schlock. The alien ship that crash lands seemingly has no origins, nor are we ever told what the hell happened to warrant it crashing on our planet. What’s relevant is that local mosquitoes retreat to the crash site to feast on alien blood and transform in to bugs the size of pitbulls. Now park rangers and local scientists team up to find out the source of the attacks, while crossing paths with a trio of bank robbers on the run from the law. The ring leader is none other than Gunnar Hansen who obliges the audience with a chainsaw nod, and hams it up ad hilarity.
Though the film’s low budget is apparent, with really bad editing, Jones and co. concoct some decent special effects. Jones doesn’t allow the budget to hold the narrative back, depicting some great mosquito kills, including a character who literally implodes from being sucked of all his blood, and a naked woman who is fed on through her butt cheek. The mosquitoes themselves also range from embarrassing to impressive, with a lot of far shots obvious green screened inserts, yet Jones and co. master the important shots of the giant mosquitoes emerging from their eggs. The cast don’t seem to try to do anything except chew the scenery, while most of the film is just mosquitoes on a rampage, and characters trying to bring them down with whatever tactics possible. “Mosquito” is a classically bad monster movie with a low budget, and a neat idea. It delivers giant mosquitoes sucking on humans regardless of its limitations, and amounts to a very memorable guilty pleasure.