Monsters - Bug House 1990

 Monsters - Big House 1990

PLOT - A young woman travels to her father's sea side cabin out in the middle of nowhere one stormy night to check in on her estranged younger sister. Breaking down in the middle of a terrible storm, she comes inside to find the shocking discovery that her sister is nearly nine months pregnant and acting very strangely. When she looks around at the cabin, and sees the place falling apart as well as being infested with insects, she begs her sister to leave this place and go back home with her. 

LOWDOWN - Fighting a head cold from HELL this week, I've mostly been lounging around resting up, and drinking enough tea to fill a city pool. Still, tonight I was able to record another episode of The Terror Twins with my buddy Chad AND pop in the third season of Monsters. I own dozens of TV shows, and sadly never have the time to catch up and watch all of them. I still own the 80's version of The Twilight Zone, Tales From The Darkside, Freddy's Nightmares, and of course Monsters. I love horror anthologies, and own countless TV series based off these kind of stories but am very slowly chipping away at catching up on all of them. In fact I have a dream project I would love to do with another fellow artist, but in order to even make it possible I need to finish watching all of the episodes of Freddy's Nightmares. Some may say it shouldn't be an issue plowing through TV episodes like this, but for me between working a full time job, two dogs, and not feeling that good as of lately, I'm sadly way behind on my watch and review list. Truly Stacy problems. "Sigh..."

Any who, I'm 65% finished with Monsters, the cheaper version of Tales From The Darkside that mostly focused on tales of creatures and yes...monsters. There are a handful of truly strong episodes such as Glim, Glim, The Farmer's Daughter, The Jar, and The Match Game. Tonight, I witnessed yet another episode to add to that list.

This being Bug House.

Loosely based off Lisa Turttle's story of the same name, in 1990 the same director as The Moving Finger (the one based off Stephen King's short story) directed another creepy episode and his effort is very much shown in this one. I hate to admit it, but for the most part the Monster episodes truly make me wanna yawn. Very few have held my interest, but the second this one started I knew I was in for a treat. Between the uber cool score, the creepy setting, and yes the strong actors behind it the episode read out more like a play. There was a twisted love triangle, some well written background on the sister characters, and a great "villain". One of my favorite moments is the lead character looks up and sees little holes in the ceiling only to have another character jump up behind her, putting his hand over her mouth and warning her she'll wake them up. 

Strange enough for you? 

It's sad that such a chilling story was so short, but is one of the stronger episodes. I have a feeling had Monsters stuck with darker stories like this one who knows, maybe they would have gone another few more seasons. With a great twist, and gross practical effects I urge anyone to pop in this episode or look it up!

4 stars!