William Friedkin’s later work has fascinated me for years, and I’ve already written about these two films in my article about his Inadvertent PTSD Trilogy (I included Rules of Engagement as the first film in the trilogy). But when Kino Lorder released 4K versions of Bug and The Hunted, I had to write a little more about both films.
First off, the new discs contain only the existing special features. The main draw is the new transfer, and both films look great. It’s simple, if you enjoy these movies, as I do, then these are the versions you should own.
Now, for the film’s themselves, I just wanted to enjoy them on their own. With The Hunted, I loved how streamlined it was. This is a relatively simple film with no fat on it, featuring some great knife fights and great performances from Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio del Toro.
The bookended Johnny Cash readings and the inclusion of “The Man Comes Around” always bring back memories for me. This is what spurred me to become a Cash fan. I even remember immediately going to the store after watching this to buy a copy of American IV, and I’ve been a massive fan ever since.
I won’t claim “they don’t make movies like this anymore,” but I will say that they don’t make movies like this with such skill and brevity any more. Either there’s a film similar to this but it’s a half hour too long, or there’s a film like this but it gets bogged down in mediocre action. The Hunted is a relic in that way, and it’s one I revisit regularly because of that.
Bug is a very different movie, and it’s the first of Friedkin’s two Tracy Letts adaptations (the crazy Killer Joe is the second). It’s easy to focus on the PTSD of Michael Shannon’s character, what with his claims of the drugs he was given while enlisted and the helicopter hallucinations and whatnot.
Putting that on the back burner for this rewatch, I was instead captivated by what Shannon’s psychosis means in today’s world. It’s hard to look away from Shannon’s crazed eyes in this, but Ashley Judd is the main character for a reason: she’s the dangerous part of society. There will always be crazy Michael Shannons out there spewing their nanobug nonsense and pulling their own teeth. It’s the Ashley Judds that buy into that shit that are truly scary.
In the film, it’s a chance encounter that leads to their deathly downfall. Locked in a hotel room with him, Judd succumbs to his psychosis because she’s a broken person subconsciously crying out for some conspiracy to buy into. What makes Bug more frightening today is the fact that this is all happening on the internet now.
It’s pretty rare to come across a friend of a friend who ends up crashing on your couch and makes you end up believing that you are the “super mother bug.” That’s a freak occurrence. But now every other asshole online is a crazy Michael Shannon, and other, weaker-minded dildos are falling for this shit scrolling through TikTok. Our phones have become the seedy motel rife with enough conspiracy theories to break your brain.
Bug reminded me of what actually terrifies me about the internet. It’s not that it’s become so pervasive in our lives that we are essentially enslaved to it (though that sucks, too). It’s that stupid fuckheads have become so emboldened by it that people are much more likely to buy into the crazy shit that used to get them laughed out of the room but are now so common that they’re considered “normal.” It’s enough to make you do a Michael Shannon thousand yard stare and pull out your teeth.