I wanted to but couldn't!

hyped garbage

Excellent but underrated film

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

SKEETER on the one hand is clearly influenced by typical mutant monster movies of the 50s like THEM or TARANTULA, on the other hand it owes its existence certainly to successful movies of the 90s that tell similar stories, such as TREMORS or TICKS. To come straight to the point: The biggest drawback of the film is its running time of 91 minutes. There is not enough substance to the story for this. In this respect director Clark Brandon should have been guided more by movies from the 50s, which rarely exceeded the 80 minute mark. This could have been a thrilling movie. As it is, we have to deal with a long exposure and a rather dreary love story between a pretty boy Deputy and the red haired village beauty. Even the subplot about a vicious building tycoon seems very much out of place. Regarding the build up of tension, SKEETER works along the line of classic monster movies. But Brandon tries to do something different with the scenes between the mosquito attacks and to not just stretch the running time (well, mostly). Brandon's style deviates significantly from what is common in most contemporary B-monster-movies. He more often than not works with clear, almost static shots, frequently taken slightly from below. Thus, the protagonist are standing around like lost in somewhat unreal and inhospitable landscapes as if they don't belong there. This impression is reinforced by the special light of the desert which is used very effectively by the director. With these scenes, the film, which was almost entirely shot on location, describes man as an intruder into a world, seemingly motionless for ages, a world whose balance is destroyed by man, thus evoking his own destruction. In this sense, quite apart from the rather simplistic presented toxic waste problem, SKEETER is, albeit on a modest level, a warning against home-made environmental disasters. In this regard, the film stands also in the tradition of classic monster movies, who frequently point to the dangers of nuclear disaster. The mostly unknown cast of the film, aside from Napier and Sanderson, are doing an acceptable job, albeit Jim Youngs comes off as a rather pale hero. The incomparable Charles Napier has, in fact, the best scene of the movie, as he, already dying, grabs one of the mosquitoes, crushing it with his bare hands, shouting: "I got one! I got one!" The special effects are mostly acceptable for a low budget movie like this, albeit not entirely convincing. Especially the "mosquito-point-of-view" shots, done with a special camera, are undoubtedly an asset to the film. SKEETER is certainly not more than an average B-monster movie with a few lengths, but due to its effective and sympathetic style it stands out positively from the usual direct-to-video stuff.

At the opening of the film we see a crew storing waste canisters in an old mining compound. We later find that it stores some sort of polluted, toxic substance that increases the size of mosquitoes who frequented it and will threaten the remaining citizens of a sleepy desert community of Clear Sky(I'm guessing in Arizona or New Mexico). Besides the threat of mosquitoes is a land developer named Drake(Jay Robinson)who is paving the way for a future suburbia settlement. Drake wishes for farmers around him to give up their lands, one of those being Clay Crosby(John Goff)whose wife has recently passed and livestock are mysteriously dying off. His daughter, Sarah(Tracy Griffith)returns for the funeral and strikes up a past relationship with Deputy Roy Boone(Jim Youngs, all mullet and muscle..but little real acting skill other than standing tall and stiff)who sees that something's not right in Clear Sky. He calls in geologist Gordon(William Sanderson)to check the water around the area and he soon discovers that what is killing not only the livestock but citizens as well is polluted water. Yet, when he informs his findings to his superior it falls on deaf ears..his superior is in Drake's hip pocket so reporting such an environmental disaster will seemingly prove difficult. What's even worse is Roy's superior, Sheriff Ernie Buckle(Charles Napier)is aware of Drake's crooked ways but turns a blind eye to all his underhanded activities. The polluted water that is killing the livestock and poisoning the citizens was carefully hidden only to Drake and Ernie and somehow Roy must find a way to make things right. Roy will have trouble on his hands as Drake has hired goons who will attempt to take his life.A lot of plot does convolute what is essentially a B-movie creature feature. Some characters are kind of left hanging such as Michael J Pollard's weirdo Hopper, a collector who has this make-shift museum and feeds blood to his pet mutant mosquito. What we kind of forget about is that he has a live one that ISN'T dead. Then we never really get a resolution to villainous Drake, though it is quite clear he might face ruin if those who stand in his way such as Roy and Sarah aren't silenced. Thankfully, Roy has a loyal partner, a Native American named Hank(the reliable Eloy Casados)who sticks by him. The bugs themselves are a bit of a let-down, but expected as such with the low-budget I'm sure the filmmakers were saddled with. The story, though, plays the silly premise almost completely straight and the story about the citizens losing their community slowly to death and change is really sad. The location of the desert around the plot assists the film in my opinion. I'm a fan of "mutant bug" films so I cut this exercise some slack. If you like these sci-fi/horror creature features which came out in the early 90's during the made-for-video boom then this should be a treat. George "Buck" Flower has an amusing cameo as a mosquito victim.

I'm simply amazed at the low rating of this movie. Sure it's not high fare and has some low-end special effects, but "Skeeter" is a well acted and well paced "Big Bug" flick.First and foremost we have the sexy Tracy Griffith (see her in First Power) as female lead, that is enough for any one to watch. But then we have some of Hollywoods great character actors Charles Napier, Jay Robinson (what a great voice), William Sanderson (remember him as the psycho sniper in the episode called BLOOD of X-files) and lastly Michael J. Pollard.Sure, director Clark Brandon isn't a horror director, and directed more episodes of The Facts of Life than he cares to confess. But I feel he does a good job here. He knows how to direct good actors and bring out their best. I know the special effects aren't that special by today's standards. But I think they are great considering the obscene over use of CGI in the genre today.All in all, SKEETER is a good, well paced and expertly acted Big Bug movie and pays decent homage to the old Big Bug flicks of the 50's. If you have a certain affection for the old Big Bug flicks of the 50's as I do, then check this one out.

This was such a bad movie... I mean, bad. It's two redeeming qualities are: 1) Now when someone asks me "What's the worse movie you have ever seen?" I will have a suitable reply. 2) It was mildly entertaining to see a movie that uses the kind of giant plastic bugs that you can buy at dollar stores... how often do you see that? It looks like it might have been trying to be "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" meets "Arachnophobia," but it unfortunately only managed to be "my 10 year old son meets cam-corder..." and, come to think of it, he would have done a better job. I mean... gargle afterward.Yech.