Opening Swarm: A Plague Upon Your Sunday Night
CBS once looked at America, looked at its fear of bugs, and said: what if we made homework about it? Thus begat Locusts (a.k.a. Locusts: Day of Destruction), a two-hour natural-horror TV event where the special effects are outpaced only by the plot holes. Think Jaws, if the shark multiplied by a billion, learned to fly, and was rendered with the processing power of a toaster.
Premise Check: USDA, But Make It Michael Bay
Our heroine, Dr. Maddy Rierdon (Lucy Lawless, trying her best), discovers that a USDA lab has engineered super-locusts who laugh at pesticides the way teenagers laugh at curfews. They breed faster than TikTok trends and live longer than network procedurals. The movie calls this “science.” The rest of us call it “a 9th grader’s book report that got out of hand.”
Meet the Menagerie: Heroes, Cowards, and Clipboards
Maddy is flanked by Dan (Dylan Neal), who specializes in crops and romantic subplots, and Peter Axelrod (John Heard), the scientist who created the bugs and the film’s primary distributor of regret. A revolving door of officials—General Miller, Secretary Morales, and the DHS Bowl Cut Chorus—debates whether to use VX nerve gas on fly-weight insects while staring at PowerPoint slides like they’re ancient runes.
Early Warning Signs: “They’re Grasshoppers, Not Tarantulas”
The movie’s first lesson in Darwinism is a lab tech who refuses a protective suit because, quote, “they’re grasshoppers.” Seconds later she’s being exfoliated alive by a thousand mandibles. Somewhere, an OSHA inspector felt a chill and didn’t know why. The second lesson? A janitor drops a biohazard tube down a sink and flees. Congratulations, America: your apocalypse was caused by Butterfingers.
The Science: Written By a Blender
These locusts are pesticide-proof, crossbred with “desert locusts,” and apparently moonlight as electricians. They eat crops, glass offices, plane engines, and eventually people. They are also magnetically attracted to bright light, loud sound, plot convenience, and mid-2000s CGI smoke. The screenplay throws around terms like “hybridization” and “reproductive cycle” as if saying “mitosis” three times will summon believability.
Cross-Country Crunch: A Buffet of Bad Ideas
We cut from Napa Valley vineyards turning to kindling to a Pittsburgh skyline getting frosted by crunchy doom. A jet plows into the swarm and drops like a stone, raising important questions such as: did nobody read Airplane!’s “don’t fly into the birds” memo? The control tower shrugs until a ball of fire answers their email. Meanwhile, a school bus gets ambushed because Peter’s bugs are unionized against education.
Character Development: Now With 30% More Yelling
Lucy Lawless bludgeons through exposition like a pro, but even Xena can’t hack a script that treats human interaction as an optional feature. Dan exists to a) doubt, b) reconcile, c) kiss. Peter exists to whisper “my fault” and bleed nobly. General Miller exists to audition for the villain role in a toothpaste commercial. The only character with an arc is the swarm: it goes from herbivore to carnivore to flambe.
Government Brain Trust: Gas Them, But Nicely
DHS convenes to decide whether to dump VX nerve gas on Indiana, a state previously attacked only by Big Ten football. Maddy points out that this is, medically speaking, a war crime; Miller replies with “well, the President said it’s cool.” The plan collapses when Maddy calls the press mid-flight because she’s the only person here who’s heard of optics. The helicopter promptly turns around to preserve both lives and Nielsen ratings.
Farmhouse Finale, Part I: Shock Therapy for Bugs
At Grandpa Lyle’s farm, inspiration strikes: zap the swarm like a million fruit flies. The gang rigs a grain silo, electrifies the metal, and watches locust tempura rain from the sky. It’s the film’s single clever moment—if by “clever” you mean “stealing from a bug zapper.” Peter dies anyway, achieving the rare cinematic feat of perishing from his own plot twist.
Farmhouse Finale, Part II: America Unplugs Itself
Cue the Hail Mary: cut power nationwide and reroute the grid to two mega-lines so the locusts can swan-dive into a continent-sized bug light. The Department of Energy lady says, “Sure, why not?” like she’s agreeing to bring potato salad. Transformers explode, cables glow, the swarms crisp up like a nationwide fajita special. It’s the most patriotic blackout since the Super Bowl.
Romance Among the Mandibles: Babies and Biohazards
Between mass electrocution and cabinet-level screaming, Maddy and Dan squeeze in a reconciliation and—one time jump later—a baby. She gets another job call, pauses, looks at Dan, and chooses family over national pest crises. Bold of the movie to assume anyone trusts a world where the USDA can breed doomsday insects but childcare is still an afterthought.
Craft Corner: The Beige of It All
Visually, Locusts is a beige buffet. Daylight flatness smothers every frame, the effects look like they were composited on a TI-83, and the swarms resemble cigarette smoke with a protein shake. The score is “urgent strings #4,” the editing is “commercial break incoming,” and the geography of action scenes is “trust us, it’s bad.” Even the locust POV shots feel embarrassed to be there.
Tone Problem: Disaster Movie, Disaster Humor
The film believes it’s a thriller and occasionally remembers to act like one, but it also peddles slapstick—bribing feral children with candy, dropping top-secret tubes, sprinting through corn with a bed sheet like a DIY ghost costume. It wants to be Contagion for bugs; it ends up Sharknado for dads who own riding mowers.
Biology for Screenwriters: No Notes Were Taken
Locusts don’t become piranhas because the plot needs higher stakes. Pesticide immunity isn’t a universal “God Mode” button. And if a swarm can shrug off chemicals and wind shear, a live power line shouldn’t fry them like funnel cakes unless it’s carrying Zeus on layaway. The movie treats science like a vending machine: insert jargon, receive miracle.
Lucy Lawless, The Last Line of Defense
To be fair, Lawless sells the urgency like she’s rescuing a better movie from a burning building. She wrangles acronyms, glowers at generals, and somehow makes “Voracious Insect Mobile Research Lab” sound like a thing humans say. She is the flick’s lone stabilizer—an action figure standing in front of a green screen avalanche.
Moral of the Story: Don’t Crossbreed Plagues, Maybe?
Locusts wants to warn us about hubris: man meddles, nature bites back. What it actually teaches is “lock the lab door” and “don’t outsource national security to a guy who drops jars.” It also suggests that the fastest way to fix a federal scandal is to call CNN mid-helicopter, which, to be honest, might be the most realistic part.
The Sequel That Proves Nothing Matters
CBS followed this with Vampire Bats, expanding the “science did a dumb” cinematic universe. If you enjoyed Locusts, you’ll love Vampire Bats—it’s the same PowerPoint, but the bullet points have fangs. At this point, one assumes Killer Dandelions was storyboarded on a legal pad somewhere.
Final Diagnosis: Swarm and Drang
As a disaster movie, it’s diet. As a horror movie, it’s hollow. As a TV movie, it’s exactly what it says on the tin: background noise for folding laundry, starring actors who deserve hazard pay for standing next to dialogue like “They’ve turned carnivorous.” The apocalyptic stakes feel weightless, the spectacle is microwaved, and the science is a dare.
Closing Bite: Save Yourself, Not the Harvest
If you crave eco-horror with bite, watch The Birds, The Mist, even Arachnophobia. If you insist on Locusts, keep your expectations—and your lights—low. The only thing this swarm devours is your patience. And unlike the VX plan, there’s no off switch.
