---
title: "Insect Fear Film Festival"
chunk: 7/7
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"
---

=== 15th Annual Insect Fear Film Festival (1998) ===
The 15th Insect Fear Film Festival (IFFF), held in February 1998, focused on "Roaches Redux." Dr. Berenbaum, the organizer, remarked on the irony that, in 1997, Americans spent approximately $250 million on cockroach poisons, only to spend nearly the same amount watching movies about them.
Short films of this year included animated Raid commercials from the 1960s, Warner Brothers' Bingo Crosbyana, episodes of Santa Bugito, and the trailer for Twilight of the Cockroaches. Feature-length highlights included War of the Coprophages (1996), an X-Files episode where Agent Mulder teams up with entomologist Dr. Bambi Berenbaum to battle possible alien cockroaches; Joe’s Apartment (1996), a comedy about a young man befriending singing, dancing cockroaches in New York, with special effects by UIUC alumnus Chris Trimble; and Men in Black (1997), featuring a cockroach-like alien.

=== 14th Annual Insect Fear Film Festival (1997) ===
The 15th IFFF, held in February 1997, embraced an "all ants, all the time!" theme and marked the first year the festival was held in Foellinger Auditorium.
AN(T)imated shorts of this year included Dance of the Ants, Gay Anties, Ant Pasted, Ants in the Plants, One Less Ant, and Porky’s Ant. The feature films showcased Them! (1954), a sci-fi classic about giant radiation-mutated ants invading Los Angeles sewers, starring Edmund Gwenn; Phase IV (1974), a tale of super-ants challenging humanity for Earth's dominance, featuring Nigel Davenport and Lynne Frederick; and Angels and Insects (1995), a sensual drama exploring the Victorian social hierarchy through the lens of a myrmecologist.

=== 10th Annual Insect Fear Film Festival (1993) ===
The tenth IFFF, held in 1993, featured a 12-hour insect movie marathon and, for the first time, served food created using insects. This was also the first year that a children's insect art competition was held, with the winning drawings displayed for two weeks at the Natural History Museum.

=== 4th Annual Insect Fear Film Festival (1987) ===
The fourth IFFF, held in 1987, focused on "female" insect fear films. The lineup included Mothra, Empire of the Ants, and  Invasion of the Bee Girls.

=== 1st Annual Insect Fear Film Festival (1984) ===
The first Insect Fear Film Festival was held in March 1984 and established a format that has endured over the years. The inaugural event showcased Them! (1954) and Bug(1975), interspersed with animated shorts, including the 1980 Academy Award-winning Hungarian short The Fly(1986).

== References ==