Bug

It’s easy to go over the top when it comes to portraying a mental breakdown. Overly emotional histrionics and wild gesticulating are an actor’s lazy short hand, like a recipe for how to do it without bothering to come up with something more original or authentic. So thank god that William Friedkin took control of Bug and got some frighteningly brave, authentic and career-high performances from his two main cast members (the rest of the supporting players are equally effective). The Exorcist is a great horror film in which a lot of the violence begins as psychological terrors and ends up being of the corporeal variety, but me many of the greatest, most intruiging and scariest horror films present terror of the purely psychological variety. From Val Lewton’s dream-like run of films to something more graphic like this, these are the type of horror films that really engage me.

The real tragedy of the film is that Ashley Judd’s character seems pre-destined from the very beginning to suffer through some variation of this emotional and mental collapse regardless of who she was with. The real question was when it was going to happen and how bad it was going to be. And Bug presents us with a nightmarish vision of her descent into madness, aided by an equally disturbed drifter who becomes her lover (Michael Shannon). Without these two performances, working in perfect union with Friedkin’s subtle tonal shifts and the materials tricky monologs, Bug would have been a massive failure. Shannon seems to excel in playing mad characters, and something about him never quite seems totally trustworthy or all together stable. Without having to say a word he can make you uneasy, but once he bites into his ravings and spittle is flying out of his mouth, it’s a magnetic, hypnotic piece of acting that would have brought forth heaps of awards and accolades if it wasn’t in a horror film. But Judd is the true revelation here. Going seamlessly from beaten down blue collar woman to babbling psychotic, it’s the kind of work that would have won an actress an Oscar if it removed the horror film elements and stayed as a depressing character piece. Bug begins as a realistic character study before transitioning into something much deeper and untethers so quietly that it’s hard to spot the exact moment of transition. The claustrophobia and stark emotional context of the work gives two actors a great showcase, and they deliver some great work.