Day: January 21st, Movie: 22

Tonight was the first time during the Genre-ary Sci-Fi DailyView that I have watched more than one movie in a day. During the year-long DailyView I routinely watched multiple films on certain days and even in the June Swoon, I wound up watching one more movie than days in the month.

Last week, I started to fill out the schedule for the remainder of the month and I was noticing that there were more films on my planning sheet than I needed. That was the first time that I considered taking a Saturday or Sunday (or both) and doing more than one for that day.

Since I was already on HBO Max for Journey to the Center of the Earth, I figured this would be the opportune moment to watch another film that appeared on the streaming service. This was 1997’s Mimic, a sci-fi/horror film written and directed by Guillermo del Toro and involved the genetic engineered creation of an amalgam of a praying mantis and a termite into a creature known as the “Judas” breed to solve the deadly “Strickler’s disease” which was killing the children of the city.

Dr. Susan Tyler (Mira Sorvino) was responsible for the creation of the Judas breed, but since they were all female and should have had a lifespan of just a few months, she believed that they would just die out. But as Dr. Ian Malcolm said in Jurassic Park “Life will find a way.” The Judas breed began to evolve and a large colony of the insects lived in the subway station under New York City.

When Susan discovered the existence of the evolving Judas breed, she and her husband Dr. Peter Mann (Jeremy Northam) began their search for the colony hoping to be able to cut the problem off before anything else happened.

Mimic is tense and suspenseful, showing how effective, once again, that Guillermo del Toro is with these types of creature features. The Judas breed bugs were remarkably gross and disgusting and there are scenes in Mimic that are difficult to stomach.

Insects, cockroaches, bugs are a naturally occurring fear among many people and make them the antagonists of this film as smart and frightening. There were some brutal moments during the movie that did not hold back.

There were some notable actors in supporting or smaller roles in Mimic that make the film better. This included Charles S. Dutton, Josh Brolin, Norman Reedus, Giancarlo Giannini, Doug Jones and F. Murray Abraham.

The film looked great for 1997 and the ending was dramatically done. On the whole, Mimic was an enjoyable horror/sci-fi movie that showed the skills at the time of a future Academy Award winning director. Mimic is a lot of horrifyingly gross fun.