"If I wasn't having such a shitty day, I'd kill you right now."
— Earl
Mosquito, also known as Blood Fever, is a 1995 film directed by Gray Jones. Staring Tim Lovelace as Ray, who is with his girlfriend, Rachel Loiselle as Megan, and a newly-hired Park Ranger, Steve Dixon as Doc Parks, a meteor chaser for the Air Force, Ron Asheton as Park Ranger Hendricks, and Gunnar Hansen, known for his role of Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, as Bank Robber Earl, this film features this unlikely group being forced to team up against mutant mosquitoes, which have fed on alien blood, and have grown to the size of dogs.
For a while, this film could only be found on Amazon for astronomical prices up to $400. However, with the release of the 20th anniversary edition, this Cult Classic in now easier to get a hold of, and watch.
The film features the following tropes:
- Actor Allusion: Upon getting a large chainsaw, Earl mentions that he hasn't used one in 20 years. It feels good.
- Alien Blood: The mosquitoes have some sort of green blood, and saliva.
- Artistic License – Biology: Aside from the obvious size of the mosquitoes, when the group of survivors finds themselves holed up in a farm house, they discover mosquito eggs in the basement, hundreds of them, all on dry cement. In real life, mosquitoes lay their eggs in water. Also, it takes them a while for their wings to dry after they enter their adult phase, and wouldn't just be able to fly right away. In fact, the movie skipped the larva stage, which is underwater.
- Big Brother Instinct: If nothing else, Earl cares about his brother Junior, enough to team up with the rest of group after he is killed, in order to get revenge.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: The exceptionally large mosquitoes.
- Bottomless Magazines: Averted. Running low, and then out, of ammo occurs, which makes things during the fight in the farmhouse tricky.
- Chainsaw Good: Earl wields a large chainsaw as he fights mosquitoes in the basement.
- Creepy Basement: The basement at the farmhouse turns out to be this, and for good reason - there's man-sized mosquito eggs down there, dozens of them, if not hundreds.
- Enemy Mine: Earl is a bank robber, who had tried to take one member of the group hostage, and tried to get them to take him and his brother where they wanted to go. After his brother is killed, Earl reluctantly joins forces with the others.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Earl cared about his brother Junior, enough to try to protect him in life. After Junior is killed, Earl teams up with the rest in order to get revenge.
- Eye Scream: At least one of the mosquitoes' victims dies this way.
- Failed a Spot Check: If Hendricks had just checked things past the basement stairs, or if the group had heeded the Geiger-Counter picking up radiation, the group would have located those mosquito eggs sooner.
- Give Me a Sword: After freeing himself from being tied up, Earl asks for a hatchet in order to kill a mosquito that has gotten into the RV the group is using. Megan gives him one. However, after killing the creature, he takes her hostage, sarcastically thanking her for the hatchet.
- I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: During their first scene, Junior points his revolver at his cousin Rex as a joke, causing the man to drop to the ground. Junior laughs, saying the gun wasn't even loaded, only to pull the trigger, and find out it was. Rex complains about this, stating that you just never know. Later, while trying to kill a mosquito that's chasing Rex, Junior accidentally kills him.
- Outrun the Fireball: Ray and Megan successfully do this, when the farm house they'd been staying in is used as an explosive trap for the mosquitoes.
- Scout-Out: After a tense moment, after Parks and Hendricks both mention having been through some tough things, including Vietnam, and if their expressions are anything to go by, they had seen some difficult stuff, and while Earl doesn't say anything, his face indicates that he'd seen a thing or two, Ray mentions that he was in Boy Scouts, and says that becoming a WEBLO was tough. This causes the other three to chuckle, breaking them out of their morbid mood.
- Shout-Out: Here's a few of them:
- The alien arm hanging out of its spaceship at the beginning of the film is a clear reference to The War of the Worlds from 1953.
- The group holds up in a farmhouse, which they board up, a clear reference to Night of the Living Dead (1968).
- Earl with a chainsaw - he mentions it's been twenty years since he last used one, and twenty years prior, Gunnar Hansen played Leatherface, who used a chainsaw in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), doubling as Actor Allusion.
- The whole movie is a throwback to the classic "Giant Creepy-Crawly" movies of the fifties, right down to the crawlies growing big from a strange substance they encounter; it's alien blood, not the traditional toxic waste, but it's pretty much the same thing. The only real difference is the gorier special effects.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Hendricks - while he isn't exactly a nice person, he is at least helpful when the group initially encounters him, but, as time goes on, he become less helpful, and complains more. Getting stabbed in the leg, running low on ammunition, and everyone telling him to do things probably doesn't help him much.
- Took a Level in Kindness: Earl - initially hostile towards the other members of the group, after his brother is killed, he helps the rest out, becomes involved in the defense of the farmhouse, and dies trying to rescue one of the other members of the group.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: For starters - why did an alien ship appear in the first place, and what was the purpose behind them dropping off the smaller ship? Garbage dump? Scouting mission gone wrong? Mutiny? What killed the aliens in the smaller ship? Mechanical failure? Or were they dead all along, and someone was getting rid of the body? Also, what happened to that farming couple? First victims of the mosquitoes? What happened to the ship later? Did government agents show up and take it to Area 51, or whatever fitted their plausible deniability? What about the fish and the frogs? Were they too affected by the alien body?
