Cicada

As always a huge thanks to Shortwave Media for this one. This is Killer VHS # 4, and as always the cover and design continues to be flawless.

Cicada is the creature feature that I never knew I wanted or needed. While not horrifically graphic, the idea alone of a giant cicada is disgusting enough!

The story is self referential and self indulgent in all the best ways. It perfectly encapsulates the cult classic horror vibe with its town full of merch and fandom coming together (for once off their message boards where they build and manipulate their own head-canon). And in those references and commentary it really reminded me of Scream 2.

While I really appreciate the cicada-wing speed of the action once it gets off the ground, I do think the story could have benefited by either a shorter opening—because as it stands it’s about 50% set up, 50% nightmare—or it could have been longer in general which would have made the opening seem shorter. Ash spends so long fighting with her boyfriend and wondering why things are weird that it became a bit noticeable for me.

The descriptions of the cicada, with its hairy legs and body, its eerily humanoid-esque head, as well as its machete length proboscis, were enough to raise the hairs on my arms. Bugs are absolutely disgusting, and especially with all the husks cicadas leave around, it was a brilliant choice to horror-fy. Can you imagine the sound a large one would be capable of? And the way the bug just kind of…drank people into their own kind of husks? Chilling.

If you’ve been a fan of the others, in this series people keep calling modern day Goosebumps for adults, then you better buckle up, because this one sits right up there with the others. Like mixing The Blair Witch Project with 1994’s Mosquito.