Insectolicious!, Continued...
Godzilla also fights the world's most famous giant moth in Godzilla Versus Mothra (1964), which features tiny twin fairies who are the friends and spokespeople of the rainbow-hued butterfly behemoth (the Olsens could have played the fairies, too!).
Godzilla fights the wispy-winged wonder once again in Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle For Earth (1991) -- only this time, Mothra has help in the form of Battra, the Black Mothra. Battra is pretty much what Mothra should have looked like all along: a more sinister, batlike creature, the sort of nemesis Godzilla can fight without rolling his eyes (Mothra looks about as sinister, and as sturdy, as a pinata).
A butterfly also makes a cameo appearance in Varan the Unbelievable (1958). When explorers travel into the remote mountains of northeastern Japan to locate an especially rare butterfly, they inadvertently bring about the awakening of a spiny-backed giant reptile that destroys Tokyo. Oops! Hate when that happens!
Insects play a considerably larger role in the wildly confusing Silent Night Deadly Night 4: Initiation (1990). Previously, the Silent Night movie series had concentrated on the antics of a Yuletide killer. But in Part 4, director Brian Yuzna and special-effects guru Screaming Mad George, both known for the opulent surrealism of their work, working from a script by Woody Keith, spin forth an outlandish tale of insect worship, feminism, spontaneous combustion, supernatural spirals, lesbianism, giant larva, witchcraft, journalism, ritualistic sacrifices aided by a homeless man played by Clint Howard... and oh yeah, it all takes place at Christmas. Boy, how in the world did Hollywood overlook that one when Oscar time rolled around? It's a crazy-quilt shindig, but hey, if you want to see some creepy insect horror, this is your fifth-best bet.
Do I smell a countdown?
So what, you might ask, would be choices No. 4, 3, 2, and 1 for buggy badness?
No. 4 is the Hammer horror classic Quartermass and the Pit (1967), also known as Five Million Years to Earth, in which we learn that ancient demonic locusts from the planet Mars are responsible for human intelligence on Earth. Who knew? The alien insects are over-the-top fakey, but still, a lot of great, thought-provoking fun -- and pretty high-concept for Hammer, a studio which usually stuck to its Gothic roots.
No. 3 would BEE a honey of a tie! That funky, sexy 1973 sci-fi sleaze-fest Invasion of The Bee Girls -- the tale of alluring queen-bees in human form loving men to death -- flies in at third place alongside "ZZZZZ", a 1964 episode of The Outer Limits in which a scientifically advanced queen bee changes into human form so she can mate with a human scientist (who, in my opinion, is not nearly good enough for her). In both No. 3 entries, it's fun and oddly naughty to watch beautiful insect-women eagerly working to corrupt poor mammalian males. Joanna Frank was perfectly cast as Regina (great name), the dizzy, ditzy, deliciously malevolent queen-bee in "ZZZZZ." She's an absolute joy to watch.
No. 2 is Creepers (1984), starring Jennifer Connelly, Donald Pleasance and Tanga the chimpanzee, and directed by Dario Argento. Like most Argento movies, it's filled with blaring rock music and loving close-ups of bloody knives and razorblades. When the teenage daughter of an American actor is sent to an elite Swiss boarding school, she finds it hard to make friends -- probably because she sleepwalks and has an eerie power over insects. At least she doesn't have zits. She teams up with a wheelchair-bound scientist and his helper-monkey to track down a brutal killer. Ultimately, the real stars of this movie are the insects -- loads of maggots and winged nasties, and a super-smart fly who steals the show by acting as the world's tiniest bloodhound! I think that fly should have starred in a sequel: Creepers 2: The Return of Super-Fly.
Last but far from least, No. 1 is a 1959 bargain-basement super-cheapy called Beast From Haunted Cave, starring a batch of unknowns who can barely act. The threadbare plot concerns a bunch of rinky-dink thieves trying to steal gold from a bank near a ski lodge. The whole thing pretty much seems like a waste of time, until you get to the monster... and then: BOY HOWDY! GREAT GALLOPING GARGOYLES! They didn't spend a ton on special effects, but what little they had, they spent well. H.P. Lovecraft, master of cosmic horror from the Pulp era, would have heartily approved of the movie's title creature - a cobweb-strewn, lumbering, subterranean spider-octopus that's a heck of a lot scarier than any sadomasochistic Hellraiser Cenobite.
Here's another funny thought: maybe Fergie needs to dig up the Beast From Haunted Cave and feature it in her next video. Maybe then it would finally receive the fame it was denied by being holed up in such an obscure old movie (not to mention a haunted cave). Check it out! The world would love that crazy critter, cobwebs and all.
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