Review of They Crawl (2001) by Jason D — 19 May 2009

They Crawl suffers from identity crisis. On one hand, the film wants to be a tongue-in-cheek killer cockroach flick, but on the other, it wants to be a crime drama. The film has a young man (Daniel Cosgrove) returning home from the military (preparing to be court marshaled) and finds that his younger brother has become distant from the world and deals in heavy drugs.

When the brother mysteriously dies, Cosgrove is on the case, working with co-lead policewoman Tamara Davies. While the audience knows that most of the deaths are at the hands of cockroaches, the leads begin to suspect an infamous cult is behind the mayhem, namely one of its notorious members, played by pre-comeback Mickey Rourke (who still manages to command the screen, even at a whopping 5 minutes).

The whole crime drama portion of this film is actually quite enjoyable and it kept my attention. It reminded me of a good Law & Order episode. However, the stuff involving the bugs and "horror" aspect was just plain BAD, especially when you get to the hilariously awful (intentional I would hope, but probably not) climax of the film involving the bugs turning into superbugs.

Some small scale genre people show up briefly as well including Tim Thomerson (Dollman) and Grace Zabriskie (Galaxy of Terror). Overall, not a bad crime drama, but a terrible horror film.