Editorials
Facing the Horrors of Conspiracy and Paranoia With William Friedkin’s ‘Bug’
There’s no running from conspiracy theories. In some ways, our species is defined by our habit of attempting to explain strange or incomprehensible incidents with interlocking narratives of our own design. In fact, our desire to connect the dots of the universe is likely responsible for cultural phenomena like science, philosophy and even spirituality, and it’s only become more prevalent with the rise of the internet. Of course, there’s a darker side to conspiratorial thinking, as it can often lead vulnerable people down a dark rabbit-hole of paranoia and isolation.
From Chris Carter’s The X-Files to Darren Aronofsky’s Pi, there are actually quite a few examples of popular media that explore the world of conspiracy theories, though only a few of these are willing to examine how psychologically damaging this kind of obsession can be. One of the absolute best of these conspiratorial yarns happens to be the 2006 psychological horror film Bug, an underappreciated descent into madness directed by the living legend behind The Exorcist, William Friedkin.
Based on the homonymous stage production by award-winning playwright Tracy Letts (who would later partner with Friedkin on another underseen gem with 2011’s Killer Joe), Bug tells the story of Agnes White (Ashley Judd), a waitress with a troubled past who befriends the ex-military drifter Peter Evans (Michael Shannon). The two quickly become close, bonding over their mutual loneliness, but Peter soon reveals that he believes he’s being pursued by the government and insists that Agnes’ motel room is infested with sinister little insects. Agnes is initially skeptic of Peter’s outlandish claims, but soon joins his crusade against the parasitic bugs in a tragic case of folie à deux that escalates into tragedy.
While the first half of this slow-burn thriller is mostly dedicated to setting up Agnes and Peter’s budding relationship, containing more than a few genuinely touching moments as these two strangers slowly open up about their emotional vulnerabilities, it eventually becomes clear that things will be taking a turn for the horrific. These microscopic invaders might not seem all that terrifying at first, especially when you don’t even know if they’re real, but the paranoid horrors suggested by Bug are much larger and more tangible than any physical monster.
It’s just a little love bite, right?
Friedkin was extremely dissatisfied with the movie’s original marketing campaign, which sold the feature as a more traditional horror flick instead of a self-contained dramatic thriller. Similar to The Exorcist, which the director has always claimed to be an uplifting tale about being able to love a stranger so much that you’d be willing to die for them, Friedkin insists that Bug is actually a genuine love story surrounded by horrific circumstances. While he has a point about the marketing, as the misleading trailers resulted in general audiences absolutely despising the film on release, I don’t necessarily agree with the director’s assessment that this isn’t a horror story. It may focus on the characters and takes a while to get going, but Bug is still one hell of an effective scary movie.
With sub-dermal parasites and cringe-inducing moments of horrific self-mutilation, the film employs quite a few elements of body-horror as it explores the terrifying extremes of madness and paranoia. With all that nasty talk about tiny egg sacs and microscopic implants, I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to take a shower once the credits roll, and don’t even get me started on that tooth extraction scene. Even so, the physical aspect of the characters’ suffering is only half the story, as the psychological damage is much more terrifying.
From implied government surveillance to suspicious helicopters flying over the motel, Bug‘s greatest achievement is in never actually confirming if Peter’s paranoia is truly baseless. References to horrific real-world conspiracies like MK-Ultra and other military experiments ground the story in reality, planting a dangerous seed of doubt that’s much scarier than any real infection. These believable elements are combined with absurd fantasies in order to put viewers in the same conspiratorial mindset as the ill-fated protagonists, leading to more than a couple of moments where you really want them to be right.
Even though Peter initially means well by exposing these terrible “secrets” to Agnes, his refusal to listen to reason eventually results in him dragging her down with him like a manic drowning victim. Even then, Agnes isn’t completely blameless, encouraging Peter’s toxic behavior when she realizes that sharing this hidden knowledge brings them closer together, and pushing people away when they attempt to help.
Love hurts.
Of course, the conspiracies are only this convincing because of the Oscar-worthy lead performances by Shannon and Judd. Shannon is actually reprising his role from Letts’ original stage show, and this is without a doubt one of the best acts of his career. Despite Peter’s manic rambling and paranoid delusions, there’s never any doubt that he’s a decent person underneath all that trauma, and you can’t help but sympathize with this hapless loner and his predicament. Judd is phenomenal as well, with Agnes smoothly and believably transitioning from helpless lover running from her past to the delirious “super mother bug” in the span of a couple of hours.
With awe-inspiring performances and nuanced direction by a true master of the craft, it’s hard not to feel a rush of conflicting emotions when Bug reaches its dreadful climax, bringing this genuinely loving yet toxic relationship to a fiery end. The deliberate pacing and subtle plot progression might not be for everyone, but there’s no denying that there’s some authentic passion behind this weird little film, and I wish more horror fans would bring it up when discussing Friedkin. Hell, the movie never even got a Blu-ray release in North America, which cements it as a bona fide overlooked gem in my book.
At its core, Bug truly is a heart-wrenching love story (and a damn good one, at that), but it’s also a chilling exploration of how conspiratorial narratives can lead lonely and vulnerable people to hurt themselves and others as they search for validation. In today’s post-truth environment, where there’s barely a difference between so-called “fake news” and legitimate journalism, I’d say that the idea that paranoia is contagious is scarier than ever. That’s why I’d recommend Bug to any horror fan willing to jump into a mind-bending rabbit hole. Just be sure to stock up on tin foil and insecticide before you dive in.
Editorials
Before ‘The Blair Witch Project’, ‘Alien Autopsy’ Showed How Real Found Footage Could Feel
The line separating artist from con man is a lot thinner than you might initially believe. While I think we can all agree that lying for the sake of profit is actively malicious behavior, isn’t it also true that the faux documentary aspect of The Blair Witch Project is half the reason why that film became such a cultural phenomenon? After all, if there’s one thing filmmakers have in common with stage magicians, it’s that misleading and misdirecting audiences is simply part of the job.
That’s why I’ve developed a habit of mostly ignoring the moral quandaries behind many of film and television’s biggest “hoaxes” in favor of appreciating the narrative elements that drive productions like Mermaids: The Body Found and even Animal Planet’s highly underrated The Cannibal in the Jungle. However, if there’s a definitive case of a highly publicized broadcast fooling the world into taking it seriously, it has to be Fox’s infamous 1995 TV special Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction.
It’s been over three decades since that eerie footage first haunted television screens right at the peak of the ’90s ufology craze, and in that time, the video has taken on a life of its own. From countless parodies and references in everything from The X-Files to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (as well as John Dower’s recently released tell-all documentary The Alien Autopsy Scandal, which I’d highly recommend to genre fans everywhere), there’s no denying the legacy of the Alien Autopsy video. However, I rarely see the tape discussed as what it truly is: a highly convincing found footage film directed by a passionate stage magician and brought to life by masterful practical effects work.
That’s why I’d like to invite readers to join me on a deep dive into one of the most infamous broadcasts of all time in an attempt to reevaluate the footage as a fascinating narrative experience rather than a complete hoax.
The TV Special That Convinced Millions It Was Real
Ray Santilli next to Extraterrestrial replica in ‘The Alien Autopsy Scandal’
For starters, regardless of whether or not you believe that there was in fact an extraterrestrial crash in Roswell during the summer of 1947 and that some form of autopsy was performed on the victims, the producers behind the black & white recordings, Ray Santilli and Gary Shoefield, insist that their video was a “restoration.” Though I’d argue that the proper word is “remake”of genuine footage that was too damaged to air on television. That’s why the duo went on to recruit filmmaker and eccentric magician Spyros Melaris and sculptor/monster designer John Humphreys to bring their version of the autopsy to life and sell it to the highest bidder.
This is where the story of the Alien Autopsy as a narrative experience really begins. Melaris claims that his approach to the faux recording consisted of striving for extreme period accuracy in both shooting equipment and setting while also planting subtle details that would initially seem like mistakes but could later be revealed to actually fit the time period. That being said, the filmmaker was under the impression that the short would be released for free as a PR stunt, with the team later producing and selling an informative documentary chronicling exactly how the footage was faked and commenting on how easy it is to manipulate public perception with a good old-fashioned magic trick.
This obviously isn’t how things went down, and that’s likely the reason why Melaris has since distanced himself from everyone else involved with the project. Yet, no amount of behind-the-scenes drama can undermine the genuine effort that went into making the short as impressive as it is. From the sourcing of real animal organs from a local butcher to make the organic part of the creature more lifelike to the highly detailed sculpt that made use of a hollowed-out underlayer that could be filled with fake blood and assorted viscera, there’s a reason why so many Hollywood specialists are still impressed with the artistry on display here.
Of course, the believability is only half the story, as I think that the best part of the autopsy is how Melaris builds on the existing tension by obscuring certain details and often embracing the chaos of what a real examination of extraterrestrial life could feel like. The camera often goes out of focus at just the right time to make certain effects hit even harder, and we can only speculate as to what the hazmat-suited doctors are gesticulating about during the operation. There’s a real air of mystery to the whole thing that almost makes it feel like a cosmically terrifying, cursed film containing forbidden knowledge that civilians were never meant to see.
So when Fox’s Fact or Fiction brings in the specialists to comment on the film and its otherworldly subject, it’s no surprise that we end up with one of the most memorable mockumentaries of all time – albeit one where the participants are unaware that the footage they’re commenting on is basically a large-scale practical joke. A joke that the network was obviously in on, as many participants claim that the TV special cut out significant portions where guests point out that they believe the footage to be an elaborate hoax.
The Lasting Impact of the Hoax Turned Cultural Event
Regardless, I remember going to bed terrified after watching reruns of the special and thinking about the respected pathologist who claimed that the body was almost certainly inhuman, with even effects maestro Stan Winston commenting on how difficult it would be to recreate some of these visuals through practical puppetry. That’s not even mentioning Jonathan Frakes’ dramatic hyping up of the disturbing imagery as if he was talking about the tape from The Ring, with his spooky demeanor here likely being responsible for his later role as the host of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction a few years later.
Personally, I’d argue that the Alien Autopsy phenomenon had just as much of an impact on me as a horror fan as The Blair Witch Project, a film that was almost certainly influenced by the success of this immensely popular hoax (to the point where they even produced their own TV special commenting on Heather’s found footage). Even if Fox didn’t intend to produce a narrative feature about the aftermath of the Roswell crash, the end product still holds up remarkably well as a highly entertaining mockumentary exploring the idea that we may not be alone in the universe.
While neither Santilli nor the rest of the production team has ever commented on this, I also think it’s very likely that the idea of a faux Alien Autopsy could have been influenced by Dean Alioto’s The McPherson Tape/UFO Abduction. I’ve already written about how this granddaddy of found footage was co-opted by rogue ufologists who began selling bootlegs of the tape at conventions as if it were real evidence of a close encounter, so it’s not that much of a stretch to imagine that Santilli and company could have heard about this phenomenon and been inspired to come up with their own highly profitable hoax.
At the end of the day, it’s unlikely that the Alien Autopsy film is recreating any real footage from Roswell, but I can still appreciate the short and the accompanying television event as a standalone horror story that still influences the way we see found footage to this very day.
After all, the possibility that something could be real is often much scarier than finding out for sure – and that’s why I think Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction is still worth revisiting three decades down the line.
You must be logged in to post a comment.