Mosquito (1994)★★★★☆

I was going to rate this three out of five instead of four out of five, but I’d be lying if I said this movie wasn’t way more entertaining than any of the three-star movies I’ve seen recently. Which isn’t to say it’s a good movie. But it feels like the kind of movie I would write.

I first watched this movie at a friend’s house sometime in 2002 or 2003. It was on TBS or TNT late at night and there wasn’t much else on at the time – y’know, before you could stream anything at any time on demand. And it was just as ridiculous then as it is now.

But it holds a special place in my heart. Sometime a few weeks later I bought some double-feature DVD pack that included both this movie and the 1988 movie Slugs (also hilarious…though not quite as ridiculous). My brother watched this at some point and found me afterwards to ask “what the hell did I just watch?”

At the time, we both agreed that the most memorable line was “We’ve figured out what’s going on around here…giant mosquitoes.” Now? I’d have to say that the best line is “I haven’t held one of these babies in twenty years!” which comes from Earl the bank robber, played by Gunnar Hansen…who also played Leatherface in the original Texas Chain Saw Massacre movie (you guessed it) twenty years earlier.

I’m a sucker for movies referencing other movies I’ve seen, what can I say? There are a couple of silly one-liners throughout this film that remind me of the kind of silly thing I frequently find myself saying, so this movie definitely speaks to me on the silly level. I mean, a look at any of the fight scenes in this film would make it pretty clear that this is a silly film.

Anyway, ignoring the fact that nothing about the mutated mosquitoes makes sense, this is a low-budget creature feature that I’m quite fond of. There’s a lot of blood and gore…most of it isn’t very realistic, but there’s a lot of it, so be warned.