There is no shortage of giant insect horror. The 1950s saw pioneers in this regard, giving us gigantic bugs of all varieties. The insects we saw wreak havoc in the fifties include, but are by no means limited to Giant ants in Them! (1954), Beginning of the End’s enormous grasshoppers, Extra-large killer wasps in Monster From Green Hell (1957), and you’ll never guess what was gigantic in The Deadly Mantis (1957). Ants and spiders, especially, would be visited and revisited with time. However, surprisingly, it wasn’t until the nineties that giant mosquitoes began to grace silver screens. Since then, numerous movies have portrayed the blood-sucking creatures as gigantic. But Popcorn (1991) was the first horror movie to give us a giant killer mosquito, and we must pay homage to the OG. On the instance that in the bowels of old Hollywood, there exists a gigantic mosquito horror movie that has been buried with time, I gracefully stand corrected – but still assert that Popcorn was the first to do so iconically.

Popcorn is an Underrecognized Horror Movie Pioneer

Released in 1991, Popcorn follows a group of film students organizing a horror-a-thon at a local theater. Each of the films they planned to show was individually equipped with interactivity for their theater audience, paying homage to one of horror’s greats: Willaim Castle.

In the 1950’s and 1960’s, William Castle was a showman of horror. When his movies were released to theaters, he would find ways to make the horror interact with the viewers. This audience interactivity included things like:

• Having a giant skeleton fly over the crowd during House on Haunted Hill
• Giving the audience a chance to “vote” for the outcome in Mr. Sardonicus
• Installing buzzers underneath movie seats to “shock” audience members during showings of The Tingler

Anyone familiar with the film Popcorn will recognize the utilization of at least one of these methods in the film. As Popcorn’s film students and their teacher devise multiple schticks to accompany the films they will show throughout the night, they’d see these things go wrong in myriad ways that I won’t spoil for those unfamiliar with the film. We’re just here to talk about that giant mosquito.

Popcorn’s Giant Killer Mosquito

The first time we see the gigantic blood-sucking fiend in action is during Popcorn‘s “film within a film,” Mosquito!

Inspired by the 1950s horror trend of bugs turned giant, ‘Mosquito!’ seems like it was ripped from an actual black-and-white fifties horror film. In fact, Mosquito seemed so authentic that many moviegoers of Popcorn believed the movie existed in real life.

In reality, it was Alan Ormsby, the then-close friend of producer Bob Clark, who directed the movies within the Popcorn movie. In Joe Bob’s Haunted Halloween Hangout, horror connoisseur Joe Bob Briggs shared that Alan Ormsby was supposed to direct all of Popcorn, but unfortunately, their financiers were getting impatient with how long everything was taking to film.

Bob Clark was subsequently tasked with firing the leading actress and the director. Alan Ormsby was so dismayed at being fired from the film (by his friend) that he wanted no credit for his work, and the two men never spoke again. Because of this, you won’t see Alan Ormsby’s name come up on the credits. It’s a shame he didn’t want credit for his work, as the film’s many mini-movies are just as entertaining as the film itself: Mosquito standing chiefly among them.

Death by Mosquito in Popcorn

On the silver screen, Mosquito! gives us an exquisite kill as the bug bursts through the roof of a car with its gigantic hose nose and begins slurping the contents from a passenger’s skull. We’re treated to a lovely little deflated-head moment that immediately begs the question: Why is Popcorn the first to give us a killer mosquito of this magnitude? Others must have wondered the same as the horror movies Skeeter and Mosquito (1995) released a few years later – and we haven’t even gotten to the William Castle-inspired aspect yet.

At the risk of referring to the mosquito’s protuberance as a hose-nose again so soon, let’s delve into mosquito biology for a brief moment. The sucker on a mosquito is called the proboscis, and only the female’s proboscis is strong enough to pierce flesh. In the film Popcorn, the professor and film students devised a giant model mosquito to swoop over their movie theater audience during the showing of Mosquito! Unfortunately for them, this flying mannequin mosquito must have been female because its proboscis was strong as hell. The mosquito flies across the air, dazzling the movie audience, until finally coming to a stop when its hose-nose gets impaled deep into the chest of an unsuspecting victim.

A Killer Proboscis?

This isn’t the only death by proboscis in the film, and it makes me shudder to think of what those hose noses would be capable of on a larger scale. Thankfully, the horror industry caught on, and now there’s no shortage of gigantic mosquitos in scary movies.

Over the years, many may come and go, but Popcorn is the innovator of brain-sucking, proboscis-impalement horror. Mosquito! alone proved that of all the bugs that can grow to obscene sizes, the mosquito is an underrepresented nightmare.

Before we go, I also want to recognize the Shock Clock in Popcorn. Please help me raise a massive demand for this clock in hopes that they’ll begin to manufacture it. Then, we can all enjoy one of the coolest clocks ever featured in a horror movie. Until then, a Felix the Cat clock will have to do.

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