Honourable Mention: Mansquito

I was half a breath from just reviewing the 2005 Tibor Takács' movie Mansquito, also known (as can be gathered from the screener packaging still used by Amazon) as Mosquito Man. Ultimately I decided that it was probably of genre interest, but the creature of this creature feature only has basic drives and is essentially a man sized mosquito as opposed to the hybrid creature shown in the packaging.

In fact, perhaps a ‘Vamp or Not?’ would have been more apt but an Honourable Mention it is.

Mamsquito

The film begins with news footage, over the credits, about the Gillan virus, a mosquito borne virus that is pandemic in the States and the fact that a research lab is looking to genetically modify mosquitos to create a breed that will not carry the virus and will replace the common mosquito. Lead scientist on this project is Dr Jennifer Allen (Musetta Vander, Transylmania) . Her boss, Dr. Aaron Michaels (Jay Benedict) wants to go live but she isn’t ready. As she works with lab assistant Liz (Christa Campbell, Revamped) we discover that they are putting mosquitos into a mutagenic fluid and then bombarding them with radiation.

Corin Nemec as Randall

Meanwhile convict Ray Erikson (Matt Jordon) is being transported to the lab. Coincidentally it was Jennifer’s lover Lt. Thomas Randall (Corin Nemec) who finally arrested Erikson after he murdered twelve people. He is on Death Row but Michaels has arranged to be able to do human testing on him. We see him picking the cuffs on the transport and he gets free in the lab and starts blasting his way out, taking Liz hostage, killing her and having a shoot out in the lab. Queue explosion of the reactor that manages to get him covered in the mutagenic gunk and floods the chamber with radiation.

changing

When all is clear we see that he escaped down a vent but Jennifer got a little of the gunk on her. We see him as he starts to mutate; open sores on his face as one arm becomes a clawed insect arm. He manages to get to the home of his ex, Tia (Svilena Kidess), before fully transforming into a man sized mosquito who then sucks Tia’s blood. The mansquito hangs around the area killing people (the attack on a club where Tia works and an attack on Michaels both seem deliberate but then it all becomes random), whilst the cops hunt for him and Jennifer realises that she is mutating too, just at a slower rate.

Red eyes

She does go through more traditionally vampiric moments whilst more human than mosquito; her eyes flash red at times and she does get a hankering for blood (and bites Randall’s neck during lovemaking). Ultimately she is turning into exactly what Erikson has become – a giant mosquito. She realises there is nothing of the man left and his only drives are feeding and mating (he is waiting for her to fully transform). A major problem here is that only female mosquitos drink blood, as a male mosquito he should have been brutalising trees and other forms of plants for their juices.

feed

He is a tough hombre though, bullets (including armour piercing ones) ping off his carapace and he survives an explosion. He cuts through cops and swat like a hot knife through butter and yet cannot manage to kill Randall. Ultimately it is a good old fashioned blast of electricity that does him in. As for the film… well it’s just a bit rubbish, after all it is a film called mansquito… of genre interest.

The imdb page is here.