Bugs. The word comes from the Middle English "bugge" which means "hobgoblin." We fear them. We are disgusted by them. They are associated with death and disease. No matter of closed windows or closed doors can stop their invasion. The deadliest animal in the world is the mosquito; they spread diseases such as malaria, typhus, West Nile, etc.
Soldiers in World War II saw this firsthand as they saw their fellow soldiers taken down by insects spreading diseases. The "war on insects," as it was called, continued after the world war was over. The fears of nuclear weapons and bugs culminated in the 1950s with movies such as "Them!" (1954), "Tarantula" (1955), and "Deadly Mantis" (1957) which saw giant bugs attacking cities. "The Fly" in 1958 continued the fear of bugs and science when a man's atoms were entangled with a fly... resulting in a human-fly hybrid, and a fly-human hybrid.
The gigantism seen in the 1950s may have waned from horror and sci-fi movies featuring bugs, but bugs continued to slither their way into Hollywood. Throughout the rest of the twentieth century, bug films continued to be a staple of Hollywood horror: "The Swarm" (1978), "Arachnophobia" (1990), "Mimic" (1997),
Now that we're well into the twenty first century, we've seen a decrease in movies that have bugs as monsters. Starting in the late 1990s, films for families featuring friendly bugs were being made such as "James and the Giant Peach" (1996), and both "A Bug's Life" and "Antz" in 1998. Later on, "The Ant Bully" was released in 2006. When Spider-Man and Ant-Man were first created, they were supposed to be a bit creepy. Now they're in blockbusters.
Do people still fear bugs? Yes. However, for many, it's more about disgust than fear. But for many in the world, they aren't even seen as disgusting. About 80% of the countries in the world contain people who eat insects! While it's not common in the United States or Europe, it is common elsewhere as over 3,000 ethnic groups eat a wide variety of over 2,000 insect species.
More information has been spread about the benefits of bugs (especially bees and spiders) and many people would be more likely to take them outside than to squash them these days. Perhaps that's why we no longer see bugs in movies like we used to. If Hollywood horror movies thrive when they reflect and play on our fears, then we have to fear something for it to work in a film.
This series has been an examination of movie monsters throughout Hollywood's history, but what about contemporary cinema? What horror movies are being released in the 2020s, and what fears do they reflect? What themes are repeated? These are questions that we may not be able to fully answer until more time has passed.
The conventional movie monsters are all still here to some degree and they continue to evolve. Dolls, clowns, ghosts, serial killers, bugs, aliens, vampires, and even our neighbors have been the subjects of horror movies. There are a lot of unknowns in this world, and we find a lot of things creepy. As long as that holds true, we will continue to have movie monsters.