Movie Review: Mimic

Originally written May 24th, 2014.

Mimic is a long-forgotten horror movie from director Guillermo del Toro. While not his finest work, it’s still a decent creature feature. The premise might seem silly to some, but if you can look past some of the goofy Hollywood science, it’s a fun watch.

The movie follows an entomologist who engineered a species of super-bug to kill off disease-carrying cockroaches. Cut to a few years later and somehow the bugs have mutated rapidly into giant carnivorous monsters. After a series of disappearances the scientist and her husband suspect that her mutant bugs may be the culprit.

Despite the silly premise and the typical monster movie execution, Mimic is a very creepy film. The movie takes itself seriously, and puts genuine effort into making the idea of giant bugs seem plausible. The buildup to the monster reveal is very effective and unsettling. The bugs have adapted to disguise themselves as a human-like figure, and we only see glimpses of them in this form for most of the movie.

The bugs make this gross clicking noise when they near their victims, and that’s mostly what we hear the entire movie instead of actually seeing the monsters. Surprisingly using only sound effects to represent the monsters works great. It’s reminiscent of the sounds the monsters in Silent Hill make as they shamble around in the darkness. In a really cool touch, the movie’s sound effects are full of various clicking noises, as if the bugs are hiding everywhere.

The main problem with the movie is the ending. It’s anticlimactic and stuck with a studio-enforced happy ending. The whole movie seems to be building up to a climactic battle with the queen bug, or at least a really large boss-battle bug, but all we get is a slightly large male that’s defeated in less than a minute. The whole ending feels very rushed, and it’s a shame because the rest of the movie is really fun and it’s a shame to see it wrapped up in such a lackluster fashion. Apparently there’s a director’s cut of the film available, but I only saw the theatrical version. The director’s cut has the originally intended ending that was more pessimistic. (It doesn’t do anything to fix the anticlimax, though) If you decide to watch the movie, I’d try to hunt down a copy of the director’s cut.

Overall, Mimic is an entertaining monster movie. There are tons of “Giant ____ attack” movies, but this is one of the better entries in the genre. It’s silly and full of the usual monster movie cliches, but it has a creepy charm that sets it apart from its peers. It’s nothing highbrow, but it’s a fun popcorn flick. It’s definitely worth checking out if you like sci-fi or monsters.