Mimic

with Mira Sorvino, Jeremy Northam, Charles S. Dutton
Directed by Guillermo Del Toro
by Scott Hefflon

Mimic utilizes every tactic in the horror bag of tricks, but there is a subtlety in the details that makes all the difference in the world. Sure, scientists create a “Judas Breed” cockroach to infiltrate, imitate, and terminate the New York cockroaches that are spreading disease faster than you can say “The Stand.” And now, surprise, surprise, the adopt, adapt, improve workaholics have returned to kick our asses yet again. Now they’re imitating humans. And wow are they scary. We’re all used to false alarm, bang your dead startles, and slowly opening, slavering jaws are certainly nothing new, but it’s the way Mimic uses the standard tricks that gets ya in the end.

Sorvino plays an attractive, bright scientist, Dutton plays a boisterous, Black security guard bitching about overtime, there are children in peril, one of which is “special,” and everyone crawls around dark subway shafts with clacking, seven-foot (vertical) cockroaches lurking behind every door. Creative camera shots, scary “monsters,” quick-thinking characters, and tense chases – sure it’s “just a horror movie,” but it’s a good one.