A sorority house is besieged by genetically mutated bugs that have been inadvertently bred by an ambitious yet reclusive science student vying for PhD honours. Cheerful, light and mostly entertaining horror/comedy made on a shoestring budget, merges house party slasher themes and the more conventional giant bug movie to pleasing effect. The bookish Cinderella scientist taunted by her arguably more attractive sorority sisters (certainly more sexually active) proves to be the only person capable of defeating the nemeses after most of the party are dismembered. Nudity abounds, with the resident hussy bouncing from one bone head to the next, before ignorantly ingesting larvae that transforms her into a queen vessel for the mutant spawn. Not being the sharpest tool in the shed, she misdiagnoses the metamorphosis as an STD, and attempts to treat accordingly with anti-bacterial scrub, with comical results. She in turn proves to be as much a threat as the bugs themselves, even attempting to cannibalise her companions while appearing to drift in and out of lucidity.
It's essentially "American Pie" meets "Friday the 13th" with a few man (or in this case) woman-eating bugs added for seasoning. All the college house party motifs are on display: hot tubs, beauty queens, Asian students, lesbian encounters, jocks and good old fashioned S&M - no theme is considered taboo. Despite the student film quality to this flick, the photography and sound departments are competent; the CGI effects on the other hand, are the key liability to success. There's little interaction between the characters and the CGI monsters, just an occasional severed mandible or inanimate roach casing to fuse the two layers. Still, it is quite amusing watching the guy wrestle a giant roach from his face, while attempting to satisfy his Gothic girlfriend's demand for cunnilingus.
And, while there's a whole second hand store full of dismembered limbs, buckets of gravy and plenty of goo and slime, it's all quite tame and unrealistic. The R rating surely is reserved for the endless procession of nudity and sex that seems to be a pre-cursor to each climax (so to speak). The production designer (Sean Whale) appears to have been so instrumental to the production, that he's allowed to indulge in a meaningless walk-on in the closing scene, as the characters lament the potential for repetition and a nod to the prospect of an as yet un-realised sequel. Entertaining, but perhaps for all the wrong reasons.
