Friday, March 21, 2014

The Millennium Bug, We're Gonna Need a Bigger Can of Raid

Remember the Y2K hysteria?  Nuclear missiles were going to fly.  Bank vaults would open on their own. Our bank accounts would vanish.  The anti-Christ would arrive.  Nut jobs implored us all to stockpile canned goods, and fill milk containers with water with two drops of Clorox bleach added.  Then December 31, 1999 became January 1, 2000 and......NOTHING HAPPENED!  However, in 2011's "Millennium Bug" something did happen.  Today's movie combines "Deliverance," "Wrong Turn," "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," 1980's "Mother's Day," and "Them."
  The plot:  For New Year's Eve, a good looking family heads to California's Sierra Diablos Mountains to camp.  Joanny (Jessica Simons) just married Byron (Jon Briddell).  Clarissa (Christine Haeberman) is their teen-aged daughter who hasn't fully accepted her "new mom." After they ring in the new year, our wholesome family nestles in their sleeping bags and fall right to sleep.  Not for long, as a family of inbred, mutant hillbillies, straight from the "Wrong Turn" movies, abducts them in violent fashion.  Just prior to the abduction, a mutant female hillbilly gave birth to a mutant baby (see picture below) spurring her male family members to find new blood to introduce into their bloodline.  Clarissa is prepped for marrying the oldest son, and Joany and Byron escape and fight back in very gory fashion.  Their counterattack fails, but an ally comes out of the ground.
Every 1,000 years, according to ancient Viking parchments (even more reliable than the Farmers Almanac), a 40 foot tall bug with big teeth, stingers, over-sized eyes, and tentacles emerges from the ground to eat and nest.  This non-CGI bug then attacks the hillbilly cabin.  The bug carnage is matched with shotgun carnage, knife carnage, ax carnage, whittling carnage, and impotence carnage.  With Clarissa, stripped to her undies and tied to a bed (a mutant hillbilly wedding night tradition), Joany must rescue her and escape from the clan and the bug before the eldest hillbilly boy (groom) can find the Viagra.
 Will the bug save Clarissa from a hillbilly wedding night, while also leaving her uneaten?  Will the hillbilly community boycott the makers of this film for their insensitive and stereotypical portrayal?  Can mutant, inbred yokels ever be mainstreamed?  This is a truly scary movie, with ominous death scenes, and a horrific ending.  The non-CGI bug creature is cool, and the acting is good.  For a nostalgic look back to the Y2K hysteria, see "The Millennium Bug."

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