Squish! Bug out to these 25 movies for Halloween
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Paramount Pictures; Everett Collection Kate Capshaw (L) in 'Indiana Jones & the Temple Doom' (1984) and Jeff Daniels (R) in 'Arachnophobia' (1990)
Spooky season has long tapped into humans' deepest fears, and the creepy, crawling, and chittering creatures can make even the strongest of us shudder with disgust, especially in numbers. One bug typically can't take down a grown person, but an army of them? That's another story.
For Halloween, we've rounded up some of the best bug movies. We're talking the ickiest, the squishiest, the ugliest, and the crunchiest — either underfoot or as they eat an entire spacecraft in one bite.
<em>Empire of the Ants</em> (1977)
Marilyn Fryser (Joan Collins) likes to think of herself as the queen bee when she takes a group of prospective real estate investors to look at a beachfront property in Florida, but a horde of irradiated ants in sugarcane country are the ones who truly have the run of the place in this Bert I. Gordon flick. Like many of his other films, small creatures were used in principal photography, but, through rear-projection shots, they appear to be boat-sized as he switches to larger prop ants for close-up shots. The effect is uneven, and only terrifying if you're already inclined to avoid ants — or shady realtors.
Gross bug factor: 🐜
Where to watch Empire of the Ants: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)
<em>The Swarm</em> (1978)
Unless you lived through this particular era of media panics, it's hard to overstate just how real the threat of killer bees seemed to Americans in the 1970s. (Cue John Belushi in a bee suit on Saturday Night Live.) While movies-of-the-week Killer Bees (1974) and The Savage Bees (1976) were buzzing about, big-screen-bound Swarm descended with an impressive cast that included Michael Caine, Katharine Ross, Olivia de Havilland, Richard Widmark, Richard Chamberlain, and Patty Duke. Save this one for a group — few things are as fun as rounding up your pals for some retro-disaster-fare laughs, which, in this movie, are as plentiful as the bees attacking helicopters, trains, and nuclear power plants.
Gross bug factor: 🐜
Where to watch The Swarm: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)
<em>Microcosmos</em> (1996)
Depending on one's feelings about bugs, the 1996 French documentary Microcosmos is either a beautiful revelation about the massive, interconnected world around us, or it's a disgusting ode to snails having sex in all its slimly, gooey glory. Filled with battling beetles, given the same wondrous cinematography as any big-budget feature, and enhanced by Kristin Scott Thomas' lovely narration, it may not be a typical creature feature, but that's what makes it safe for those of us who want to play with bugs, not be scared by them.
Gross bug factor: 🦋 🦋🦋 and 🐜 🐜
Where to watch Microcosmos: YouTube
<em>Tarantula</em> (1955)
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. When a doctor attempts to formulate a super-nutrient for the benefit of humanity, his chemical reactions cause his tarantula to rapidly grow. And, as one might expect, this causes the population to be fed upon rather than fed, when the tarantula escapes and terrorizes the town. This '50s B-movie may be more well-known for being referenced in The Rocky Horror Picture Show opener "Science Fiction/Double Feature," but it holds up better than most monster movies of this era, with lots of clever visual trickery. —Kevin Jacobsen
Gross bug factor: 🐜🐜
Where to watch Tarantula: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)
<em>Them!</em> (1954)
The nuclear age impacted art all over the world as humanity came to grips with the massively destructive side of science, and, in what is one of the better sci-fi films of the '50s, America's nuclear hunger led to mega-sized insects escaping the desert nuke laboratories and heading to Los Angeles. Don't let the age of this film fool you — the large ants are effective as props, and the postwar tension of martial law being declared at the coast and nightly curfews infuses the whole ordeal with a palpable sense of dread.
Gross bug factor: 🐜🐜
Where to watch Them!: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)
<em>Halloween III: Season of the Witch</em> (1982)
Mysticism rules in this Michael Myers-less anomaly in the Halloween universe. The descendants of Stonehenge have a plan to sacrifice all the children via Silver Shamrock Novelties masks, all of which have slivers of the ancient stones inside them. Kids in the '80s were used to hearing television rotted their brains, but never was it so literal as critters replacing craniums.
Gross bug factor: 🐜🐜
Where to watch Halloween III: Season of the Witch: Peacock
<em>Dune</em> (2021)
It's unclear if the sandworms native to Arrakis have a level of understanding about their importance to an interstellar economy, but the terrifying open maw of crystal teeth — which can grind sand, stone, and machines alike — are dangerous enough that their power strikes fear into entire planetary armies, so one must suspect they don't care. Despite this, the local population of Fremen are not only able to live alongside the sandworms, but they incorporate them into their ancient rituals and traditions.
Gross bug factor: 🐜 🐜
<em>The Naked Jungle</em> (1954)
It takes nearly half the film to get to the menaces in The Naked Jungle, but once the rivers of ants start to flow across the South American cocoa plantation, stripping bones dry as they eat their way through the landscape, both the creatures and leading man Charlton Heston turn up the intensity in this pulpy melodrama. In contrast to Them! — released that same year — real live ants in full Technicolor swarming people adds to the ick factor, but not necessarily the drama. Still, one could find a worse use of time than seeing a young Heston emoting at a different type of plague than the biblical ones for which he's usually remembered.
Gross bug factor: 🐜🐜🐜
Where to watch The Naked Jungle: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)
<em>Eight Legged Freaks</em> (2002)
These bugs are hard to squish. Evoking the campy creature features of the '50s, Eight Legged Freaks finds the citizens of a sleepy mining town overrun by spiders who have grown to terrifyingly large size after ingesting chemical toxins. The eight-legged predators use the mines to get into pretty much every nook and cranny of the town, and while the CGI hasn't exactly aged well, some would argue that's part of the charm. —K.J.
Gross bug factor: 🐜🐜🐜
Where to watch Eight Legged Freaks: Max
<em>Squirm</em> (1976)
Southern-style fried worms are on the menu in Squirm after a storm electrifies the mud in the small Georgia town of Fly Creek, causing the creeping critters to become carnivorous. As one of legendary special makeup effects creator Rick Baker's first films, it's a worthy watch for the worms-coming-out-the-face craftwork, or if you want to be genuinely suspicious of what is coming out of your shower head for the rest of your life.
Gross bug factor: 🐜🐜🐜
Where to watch Squirm: Amazon Prime Video via Freevee
<em>Slugs</em> (1988)
There are many fair criticisms to make about the low-budget horror film Slugs (also known by its Spanish title Slugs, Muerte Viscosa), but the top of the list would be that there are not nearly enough of the titular giant flesh-eaters promised in top-billing. Nonetheless, the ones deployed, especially in a post-sexy-time scene — it is, of course, a 1980s genre film — are gruesome and gross, willing to eat everything from hamsters to humans.
Gross bug factor: 🐜🐜🐜
<em>Arachnophobia</em> (1990)
While Jeff Daniels may have joked with EW in 1990 that he didn't have a good rapport with his arachnoid costar Big Bob, the results on the screen showed no tension between the two outside of what was written on the page — and millions of years of interspecies distrust. True professionals. Although, animal wrangler Steven Kutcher noted, "You can't actually teach them to do anything. You just watch what they do, then figure out how you can apply it to what you want them to do."
Gross bug factor: 🐜🐜🐜
Where to watch Arachnophobia: Tubi
<em>Copycat</em> (1995)
Sigourney Weaver had to take care not to kill any ants — a few of them had been defanged — so they could be returned to their wrangler on the set of Copycat, but she confessed to EW about shooting the scene, "I put two sheets on the bed, one between me and the ants. I didn't want to go home crying."
Gross bug factor: 🐜🐜🐜
Where to watch Copycat: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)
<em>The Mummy</em> (1999)
Giant scarabs have been getting under man's skin both literally and figuratively since antiquity in The Mummy, and if cutting a large beetle out from one's bicep isn't icky enough, the swarm of locusts will send shivers down any spine.
Gross bug factor: 🐜🐜🐜
Where to watch The Mummy: Peacock
<em>Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan</em> (1982)
Of all the creatures in science fiction, few are as scary and disgusting as the one introduced by Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalbán) as "Ceti Alpha V's only remaining indigenous life form." Inspired by a garden slug on producer Robert Sallin's driveway, the Ceti eel torturing Chekov (Walter Koenig) by sliding its small, slimy body across his face on the way to his ear canal so it can attach itself to his brain is one unforgettable earworm.
Gross bug factor: 🐜🐜🐜🐜
Where to watch Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: Paramount+
<em>Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom</em> (1984)
From eating large beetles like oysters at a formal dinner to lounge singer Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) having to brave being covered in a myriad of large bugs in order to save Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) and Short Round (Ke Huy Quan), the second installment of the adventure film series saw more than 50,000 insects take center stage over snakes for the creepy-crawly factor. Director Steven Spielberg famously stood next to Capshaw throughout filming the scene so she wouldn't have to endure the insects alone — although she admitted she had some additional help by the name of "Valium" to stay calm throughout the intense sequence.
Gross bug factor: 🐜🐜🐜🐜
Where to watch Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: Disney+
<em>The Nest</em> (1987)
An '80s gross-out classic from producer Julie Corman — Roger Corman's wife, notable in her own right for 1979's The Lady in Red and 1986's Chopping Mall, among others — might rival Creepshow for the best use of cockroaches in food. While much of the film is seen from the bug's perspective, the diner scene with a local waitress (Nancy Morgan) trying to keep the roaches at bay with everything from a microwave to a deep fryer really puts the "splat" in spatula.
Gross bug factor: 🐜🐜🐜🐜
<em>Ticks</em> (1993)
Genre films like Ticks were a staple of the direct-to-video market in the early-'90s, and if you were to watch one film about wood ticks that grow to unusually large sizes — thanks to a local marijuana farmer (Clint Howard) dusting his plants with steroids — this should be the one. Rising stars Seth Green and Alfonso Ribeiro as at-risk youth sent to the woods with a counselor (Peter Scolari) elevate the production when dealing with the aggressive terrorists, which, as the local veterinarian reminds everyone in the film, "When in doubt, squish!"
Gross bug factor: 🐜🐜🐜🐜
Where to watch Ticks: Amazon Prime Video via Freevee
<em>The Mist</em> (2007)
Writer-director Frank Darabont's success in adapting the works of Stephen King is unparalleled, and his work on The Mist maintains his reputation as one of the top King whisperers. While the insect-like creatures torturing the citizens of Bridgton, Maine, may belong to another dimension — a toxic, unthinking dimension of killer bugs, or did the government experiments make them this way? — the other townsfolk cracking under the stress of lockdown prove to be just as dangerous as the enormous scorpion flies and gray widowers outside. Actress Marcia Gay Harden had to suffer through audiences yelling "kill her!" when there were perfectly good bug monsters to slay instead.
Gross bug factor: 🐜🐜🐜🐜
Where to watch: The Mist: Peacock
<em>Creepshow</em> (1982)
In the "They're Creeping Up on You" segment of the anthology Creepshow, millionaire germaphobe Upson Pratt (E.G. Marshall) seals himself off from the rest of humanity in his penthouse to stay away from the "cockroaches" in his life, only to find his home has been infiltrated with the real thing. As Pratt's temper continues to mount at the "worthless" people beyond his walls, the little monsters grow in numbers and become more aggressive, leaving Pratt stuck alone in a panic room with nothing but the bugs.
Gross bug factor: 🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜
Where to watch Creepshow: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)
<em>The Fly</em> (1986)
It's hard to put this film on a list of gross bug movies because the humanity of Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) shines through in his last moments as the Brundlefly (the same way it would have been wrong to exclude David Cronenberg's other classic creature feature next on the list). The transformation into being more fly than man, human skin dripping off from his frame, his loss of speech — the nightmare isn't being covered with bugs, it's becoming one. All due respect to Vincent Price and the 1958 original, but, when it comes to grotesquerie, the goo is in the remake.
Gross bug factor: 🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜
<em>Naked Lunch</em> (1991)
Legendary director David Cronenberg told EW in 1992, "I find that the more monster-y you go, the less provocative the creature is," which holds true in his interpretation of William S. Burroughs' seminal classic Naked Lunch and of the author himself. After Bill Lee (Peter Weller), an exterminator by profession, accidentally kills his wife (Judy Davis), he journeys to the Interzone, where "exterminating rational thought" becomes an important step in understanding the hallucinatory world to which he has brought his own subconscious of guilt and self-loathing. And that's before getting to the part about the giant beetles who talk through their sphincters, the beetles that turn into typewriters Lee works on, giant bugs that are sliced apart in an open market to become a black powder, and everyday caterpillars, just to name a few. (Mugwumps, however, are clearly not bugs, even though they still go "squish.")
Gross bug factor: 🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜
<em>Joe's Apartment</em> (1996)
Originally a short film concept that aired as comedy vignettes and bumpers between commercials on the network, MTV's first feature film, Joe's Apartment, did not do much for bugs or the box office. But decades later, one cannot help but laugh at the sheer audacity of making a movie about the dirtiest apartment in the East Village and the cockroaches who build up a floundering man-child into a full-fledged adult. And the bugs? They're everywhere, including inside Jerry O'Connell's mouth.
Gross bug factor: 🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜
Where to watch Joe's Apartment: Tubi
<em>Mimic</em> (1997)
Director Guillermo del Toro unsurprisingly turns in one of the squishiest bug movies on this list with Mimic, which right off the bat lets you know this film is all about insect invasions by casting Mira Sorvino as an entomologist charged with helping control the pest population in the subways through genetic engineering. The bugs might start out small and crunchy underfoot, but a few thousand breeding cycles later, they're no longer timid roaches hiding underground; the Judas bugs are ready to face mankind for the real fight.
Gross bug factor: 🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜
Where to watch Mimic: Paramount+
<em>Bug</em> (2006)
Bug is an unusual entry in this roundup of gross movies because the audience never sees terrorizing insects, just the physical manifestation of their psychological effects on two people — drifter Peter (Michael Shannon) and cocktail waitress Agnes (Ashley Judd), who believe bugs are everywhere — as the pair suffer mental breakdowns together in a dingy motel room. Shannon originated the role of Peter on stage before director William Friedkin brought Tracy Letts' play to the screen, and the absolute intensity the actor brings into believing there are egg sacks under his skin and teeth, coupled with Judd's equally unhinged performance, makes for a disquieting romantic demise.
Gross bug factor: 🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜
Where to watch Bug: Amazon Prime Video
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