Main cast: Karen Sillas (Ellen), Robert Kerbeck (Peter), and Juliette Kurth (May)
Director: Kenny Myers
When her car breaks down, Ellen is forced to walk in the rain to seek shelter in her sister May’s place, whom she has never seen in a year. May never replies to her calls, so in the end Ellen is determined to find out why May is still living in the place that they have agreed to sell off a while back.
While she’s drying herself, Ellen learns that May, who is living in their late father’s place, is pregnant but at the same time very sickly and listless, and the whole place is a stinking mess full of crawling critters. What is going on here? The sinister root cause of all this may be Peter, May’s creepy lover…
Bug House has a twist that is easy to come from a mile away, and even the title of this episode is a spoiler.
This episode also suffers from the usual Monsters problem in that things feel rushed especially late into it, when all of a sudden Ellen is also seduced by Peter, and I have no idea why. That fellow isn’t handsome or charming in any way, so maybe it’s just her awful taste in men kicking in?
The issue here may be that this is actually a more adult kind of story, but a part of this show still can’t fully make the transition from a horror show that kids can watch to something far more grown-up. Hence, they don’t go all out with the sleaze and the sexual tension, resulting in a muted and even confusing dynamic between the two sisters and the unsettling boyfriend.
Still, this episode is noteworthy in how particularly nasty the premise is. Seriously, there are monstrous impregnation, attempted suicide, and other stuff that one doesn’t usually come across in Monsters.
All these and a decent performance from the cast members make this one a noteworthy episode that will show just how far out the people behind this episode can go when they feel like it. This may not be good news for people that like this show for what it is, but I personally wish this episode had gone even further.
Right now, it’s an edgy Monsters episode, but its unwillingness to go too far also holds it back from being a truly great one.
