Bug

Riveting, repulsive, and creepy, Bug, from an off-Broadway play of the same name, takes paranoia to the outer limits in a film that crawls under your skin. With his most daring movie since 1973's The Exorcist, director William Friedkin again sets horrific events in a confined place while putting the audience through hell on earth. An army veteran (Michael Shannon) with reason to believe he has been severely compromised by the U.S. military shacks up in a seedy southwestern town with a woman (Ashley Judd) whose past is slowly revealed to be full of tragedy and abuse. Their emerging codependence takes on frightening consequences when he begins paranoid ramblings about his body and the entire space around him being infested with bugs. He claims to be the victim of army experiments in which he was implanted with fertile insect eggs that are now taking their toll. One night of hot sex, and Judd soon starts to believe that she has been infected as well. Not helping matters is Judd's menacing estranged ex (Harry Connick Jr.), who creates havoc on her new "relationship." Although this is all essentially played out in a cramped motel room, Friedkin seems to have his camera everywhere and gets a lot of cinematic mileage from unexpected sources like ceiling fans and ominous outside noises. This is not easy subject matter, but love it or hate it, you won't soon forget it.