Mimic

1997 Horror

While one would imagine that the average New Yorker would be used to dealing with bugs after years of apartment dwelling, a scientific experiment gone wrong results in an insect that even Raid can't handle in this sci-fi/horror thriller. In Manhattan, cockroaches are spreading a deadly disease that is claiming hundreds of the city's children, so entomologist Susan Tyler (Mira Sorvino) uses genetic engineering techniques to create what she and her colleague (and husband) Peter Mann (Jeremy Northam) call the Judas Breed, a large insect that will feed on the disease carrying roaches. Since the Judas bugs have been designed so that they can't breed, the mutated species should die out in a matter of a few years. However, Susan, Peter, and their staff severely underestimated the cockroach's ability to adapt to its conditions. The Judas Breed has indeed found a way to reproduce itself, but more importantly, the insect has grown remarkably large (sometimes reaching six feet in length), has developed a taste for meat, and can mimic the appearance and behavior of other creatures with uncanny accuracy -- including humans. Susan and Peter have learned that huge swarms of the Judas Breed are living beneath the city in the subway system, and with the help of Leonard (Charles S. Dutton), a transit system employee who knows the labyrinth of subway tunnels like the back of his hand, they search out the humanoid insects before they can take over the city. Mimic also features Giancarlo Giannini, Josh Brolin, and F. Murray Abraham. more..

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Starring: Mira Sorvino, Jeremy Northam, Josh Brolin, Giancarlo Giannini,Charles S. Dutton

Reviews

  • Mimic is undoubtedly the best mutant-cockroach horror thriller ever made. Even granting that there hasn't been much competition, this is intended as a high compliment.

    - Newsweek

    26 April 2013

  • But Mimic is superior to most of its cousins, and has been stylishly directed by Guillermo Del Toro, whose visual sense adds a certain texture that makes everything scarier and more effective.

    Roger Ebert - The Chicago Sun-Times

    26 April 2013

  • A stylish B horror movie about giant insects in the catacombs of Manhattan, it's by turns queasy, gross, terrifying, and -- never underestimate this one -- enthusiastically dumb. It's everything you want in a big-bug thriller.

    Owen Gleiberman - Entertainment Weekly

    26 April 2013

  • In Mimic, director Guillermo Del Toro has created a dark, grotesque world that's hard to look at, and impossible to stop looking at.

    Mick LaSalle - The San Francisco Chronicle

    26 April 2013

  • Even the melodramatic score can't ruin the essentially serious tenor of this old-style non-self-referential horror story, whose characterizations are unassailable--stereotypical shtick you buy because the performers are working so hard and their faces are so skillfully lit.

    Lisa Alspector - Chicago Reader

    26 April 2013

Awards

  • Outstanding Latino Director of a Feature Film

    ALMA Awards (1998)

     
  • Best Make-Up

    Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films (1998)

  • Opens, Closes & Titles - Best Achievement

    International Monitor Awards (1998)

  • Guillermo del Toro

    Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival (1997)