Grade: D
Synopsis: A government agent must recover stolen vials of a deadly virus from a madman determined to rule the world.
The Satan Bug is director John Sturges inexplicable follow-up to The Great Escape.
Gone are the wide open spaces that he utilized to such great effect in films like The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven, and Escape From Fort Bravo, instead they’re replaced by stagy lab sets that date the film horribly.
Missing also, is a star-sudden ensemble cast in the vein of The Great Escape or The Magnificent Seven. Here, Sturges commands a stable of mostly B-movie veterans led by former TV star George Maharis. While they’re all surprisingly serviceable, no one is a real standout and the film suffers for it.
The script by James Clavell and Edward Anhalt from the Alistair MacLean novel bears a passing resemblance to a season of the Fox television series “24,” though it’s neither tense nor believable and loses what little momentum it has in the third act.
Bottom Line: They must have thrown a hell of a lot of money at Sturges. How else can you explain this disappointment?
One Response on “The Satan Bug (1965)”:
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Peter Cave said:
C
I saw this movie when it was first released
It was OK, untill now I never realized that
sturges was involved.
