The horror of the cockroaches in Bug (1975) becomes amplified when Parmiter even more extensively anthropomorphizes the roaches by facilitating their reproduction. In a dark and deserted farmhouse setting, the now reclusive Parmiter breeds this new species of roach with what looks like an American cockroach specimen, a process that will transform a dying species into a menace. When Parmiter sees the roaches write “We Live” on the wall with their bodies, he knows he has created unbeatable human-like monsters and is helpless against their assault.
After their flames engulf him, we see him burning, but in an odd twist that emphasizes the parallels between the roaches and their creator, Parmiter, the offspring of the original breed drag him into the crevice left by a second earthquake. The fissure’s bottom looks like the bowels of hell, with fire and brimstone deep below, and the earth explodes and covers them, closing off the opening.
This sudden ending turns horror into camp but demonstrates negative associations with both science and anthropomorphized insects found in most bug features. It also serves as a not too subtle moral attack on science and the cockroach monsters it could create.
As Bill Gibron states, “Naturally, whenever you wander onto God’s domain, things get out of hand and more people die. And it takes an unexplainable divine intervention (a second earthquake and a noble individual sacrifice) to end the debacle.” Because the evolutionary transformation Parmiter attempts involves a cockroach pest, however, his violation of nature becomes even more monstrous.
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