Mosquito Man

Title: Mosquito Man
Also Known As: Mansquito
Rating: 3.5/5
Genre: Sci-Fi, Horror
Starring: Corin Nemec, Musetta Vander, Matt Jordon
Director: Tibor Takács

The first Syfy film in a while, probably the first of a few; starring that dude from “Raging Sharks” and a girl from “Planet Raptor,” that, now in her 40s is no longer the prettiest thing around, still manages to make ravaging a guys neck and drinking their blood look pretty hot. It all kicks off when were introduced to some experimental research, testing various specimens to see if they can kill off mosquito's infected with a deadly virus by sticking them in an irradiation chamber with some silly putty and a bit of water for the dye to run into. Well as usual the research is going too slowly so they invite a man on Death Row to the party, and in the ensuing escape attempt, blows himself up getting this blue silly putty all over him, along with a dangerous blast of radiation, and by the powers of bad science, we have MOSQUITO MAN!

Then with this dodgy bit aside, its all down to our Detective to hunt down and kill this man whose suddenly turned into one ugly overgrown insect, all whilst watching his wife – also caught in the explosion but only just – gradually turn into a mosquito as well. From here on out, it's actually pretty damn good. There is still the context of it being a made-for-TV SyFy flick, so of course we can't exactly expect miracles but it certainly ranks amongst the better I've seen. The effects are still budget but done relatively tastefully using a suited man for much of it to great effect – far greater effect than had they abused CGI, though certainly there are points where it is used – and considering its SyFy source, there's a shocking amount of violence and some pretty good make up work done on our monsters snacks.

But yes, it does at times feel a little bit too much like an homage to “The Fly,” particularly in its characteristic use of the morphing sequences which occur here with relative frequency, and certainly we are given far too many action scenes involving cannon fodder shooting at his armoured plating with handguns (and not a single one of them thought 'fuck that, I'm getting out of here' upon seeing their gunfire harmlessly bounce off) that eventually they become a little tiring, but the critical point here is that the plot for the most part makes sense. It doesn't come up with some whacky solution, or deviate with multiple side plots; there is a genuine interest in the slowly transforming girlfriend, and there are only really these three characters to be concerned about. It's not original or clever; it's SyFy, and in this case, it's pretty fun to watch.