---
title: "Insect Fear Film Festival"
chunk: 6/7
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insect_Fear_Film_Festival"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:24:47.468923+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== 21st Annual Insect Fear Film Festival (2004) ===
The 21st IFFF, held on February 28, 2004, focused on "genetically engineered insects." This year's theme traced the evolution of insect horror films, from radiation fears in the 1950s to insect mutations in the 1970s. With the rise of gene manipulation in the early 1980s, genetically modified insects became a new horror movie trope, reflecting public fears about the potential risks of emerging technologies.
The short films included Bus of the Undead (2001)from Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Insect Inside (1998) from The Powerpuff Girls. This year showcased three featured films: The Tuxedo (2002), in which Jackie Chan stars in a story where genetically engineered water striders grow to enormous size and threaten freshwater supplies. The film inaccurately suggests water striders have queens, which they do not. Mimic (1997), suggested by movie critic Roger Ebert, follows an entomologist who creates genetically modified "Judas Breed" cockroaches to combat a deadly disease, only for the bugs to evolve into human-like creatures that prey on people in New York City's subways. Despite the absurd use of litmus paper to identify the "Judas breed" of cockroaches, the film effectively highlights the dangers of genetic experimentation gone wrong. Tail Sting (2001), a cult film produced by University of Illinois alumni, features genetically altered scorpions escape during a flight and begin attacking passengers, turning an ordinary journey into a deadly ordeal.

=== 20th Annual Insect Fear Film Festival (2003) ===
The 20th Insect Fear Film Festival honored Bert I. Gordon, "Mr. BIG," a pioneer of the "big bug" genre, with a retrospective of his films featuring oversized creatures. With over 20 films, including at least ten focused on giant insects, Gordon was celebrated as the special guest for the festival's 20th anniversary and was presented with a plaque and certificate of appreciation for his lasting impact on the "big bug" genre.
Among the showcased films was Them! (1954), which depicted giant ants terrorizing Los Angeles and became Warner Brothers' biggest hit of the year. The festival also featured Beginning of the End (1957), set in Ludlow, Illinois, just 30 minutes north of UIUC, where giant grasshoppers cause destruction—though the crew never filmed in Ludlow, adding a fun trivia point. Another highlight was Earth vs. the Spider (1958), in which a giant spider, exposed to DDT, terrorizes a high school gymnasium. The film's depiction of cave-dwelling spiders was inspired by real species like the huntsman spider, though none are as large as the one on screen. Gordon's Empire of the Ants (1977), one of the few big bug films of the 1970s, followed a real estate developer selling land infested with giant, superintelligent ants and may have been the first to use the term “pheromone.”

=== 19th Annual Insect Fear Film Festival (2002) ===
The 19th annual Insect Fear Film Festival at the University of Illinois, held on February 9, 2002, centered on the theme "Alien Arthropods!" and explored the impact of non-native insects and arthropods invading the U.S. and causing economic damage. The festival featured three feature-length films and several short films, highlighting the concept of "alien" species. These included the 1970s sci-fi film Quatermass and the Pit (1967), the action-packed Starship Troopers (1997), and the horror film Spiders (2000). These films depicted humanity's struggle against insect-like extraterrestrials, tapping into public fears and misconceptions about arthropods.

=== 18th Annual Insect Fear Film Festival (2001) ===
The 18th IFFF, held on February 24, 2001, featured a focus on beetles. With over 250,000 species, beetles play crucial ecological roles, yet in films, they are often depicted as menacing, flesh-eating monsters. This year's screenings included beetle-related cartoons, short films, and three featured films: The Magic Voyage (1992), an animated adventure in which beetles accompany Christopher Columbus on his voyage; The Mummy (1999), a horror film featuring flesh-eating scarabs; and The Relic (1997), a science fiction thriller involving mutated, homicidal beetles.

=== 17th Annual Insect Fear Film Festival (2000) ===
The 17st IFFF, held on Feb. 26, 2000 focused on "bees", highlighting their ecological importance—pollinating a third of the food humans eat and producing honey, royal jelly, and propolis—while also exploring how they are often depicted as sinister in films, particularly low-budget horror movies. The festival featured two feature-length films: Terror Out of the Sky (1978), in which African killer bees invade New Orleans and target a busload of children, and Wax or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees (1991), a surreal cult film about a bee-keeping hobbyist whose mind is taken over by bees. Additionally, two sci-fi TV episodes were screened: ZZZZZ (1964), from The Outer Limits, where mutated, advanced bees create a female entomologist to mate with a researcher to destroy humanity, and Herrenfolk (1996), from The X-Files, which features an enormous bee colony supported by cloned children on a Canadian ginseng farm.

=== 16th Annual Insect Fear Film Festival (1999) ===
The 16th IFFF, held on 20 February 1999, focused on "Mosquitoes in the Movies" and featured a blood drive that allowed the Champaign County Community Blood Services to collect 21 pints of blood in one night.
The festival featured a variety of short films, including Winsor McCay's How a Mosquito Works (1912), Betty Boop's There’s Something About a Soldier and Walt Disney's The Winged Scourge (1943). It also screened an Army training film on malaria prevention and the U.S. Public Health classic It Must Be The Neighbors. The evening's films included Mosquito (1994), where giant mosquitoes terrorize a town after feeding on the blood of a dying alien, and Popcorn (1991), about college students who host a film festival and encounter disaster as well as Yellow Jack (1938). Dr. Berenbaum, the organizer, highlighted that while mosquitoes are major disease vectors, most films fail to portray this aspect. A rare exception was Yellow Jack (1938), which depicted Dr. Walter Reed's work linking mosquitoes to yellow fever.