That’s usually a bit of a hit-or-miss scenario, but with William Friedkin at the helm and a supporting cast of Harry Connick, Jr., Lynn Collins, and Brian O’Byrne, BUG looks like it could possibly be a cut above the norm. It helps, too, that the screenplay was adapted by Tracy Letts from his off-Broadway play of the same name.
The film is set almost entirely within the confines of a seedy Oklahoma motel room where waitress Agnes (Ashley Judd) is holed up. Suffering from anxiety and an abusive ex-boyfriend, the unsocial gal spends her days locked away from life’s problems. But that all changes when a friend brings over a mysterious drifter named Peter (Michael Shannon) who ends up spending the night.
Images courtesy of Lionsgate Films
Rotten Tomatoes lists the synopsis as: At a rundown desert motel, Agnes (Ashley Judd) begins a tentative relationship with a newcomer named Peter (Michael Shannon). He has a strange charisma, one that offers fearful and unstable Agnes a flicker of hope. When Peter reveals that the military deliberately infected him with a bug and that he has tiny insects crawling under his skin, paranoia begins to envelop the desperate pair.