Mimic (1997)

Directed by Guillermo Del Toro
Written by Guillermo Del Toro, Matthew Greenberg, Matthew Robbins, John Sayles, Steven Soderbergh, based on a short story by Donald A. Wollheim
Starring Mira Sorvino, Charles Dutton, Josh Brolin, F. Murray Abraham, Jeremy Northam

My Advice: Matinee.

Here's a film that Hollywood should watch and learn from.  Not only was the film done for a reasonable budget with some kick-ass special effects, but hey--it had a good story with good acting and actually achieved a level of creepy, jump-out-of-your-seatness that I haven't seen in a long time.  Basically, there's an epidemic in NYC and it's killing children.  It's traced back to the common cockroach, so Susan (Sorvino), a roachologist, decides to wipe out the roach population with a genetically engineered "trojan horse" kind of roach.  Unfortunately, some time later, the cure may end up being worse than the disease.  Del Toro has done a fine job of setting up a very dark, dismal background for the action to take place in.  He's even taken some risks as far as the story goes, which I can't say for spoiler reasons--but you'll know them when they happen.  All the members of the dramatis personae are quite good, especially Dutton with his smartass comments, but it's the FX that rule the day--and they were done for $7 million.  The sneak preview of this I saw had people clapping after certain sequences, and for good reason.  All in all, Del Toro did what he set out to do, make an intelligent, enjoyable "big bug" film.