You've probably never heard of this film.
This is a good thing, on several levels.
But these reviews are not for your benefit, they are for mine!
I've been fucked around by Hollywood too many times and this is the way I'm going to work through that pain.

Meet the Applegates (1990) sounds on paper like a pretty shitty idea for an uninspired comedy.
The idea is that giant insects that live in the jungle disguise themselves as a "perfectly average American family" with father, mother, daugher and son.
The bugs think humans are a threat and so the dad gets a job at a nuclear power planet in the hopes of wiping out the human race.
We then have whacky comedy japes as the bugs try to emulate humans and gradually drift further and further from being "average".
It should go without saying that in the end they decide not to go through with it and humans and big fakey plastic bugs decide to live in peace.
Yeah, sounds pretty sugary and stupid doesn't it?
And it is...partially.
You see the reason this movie is such a cluster fuck of bullshit, is that it seems to be unsure if it is a silly. light hearted comedy (which it is 90% of the time) which is stupid, insipid and corney, or a horribly offensive cluster fuck of rape, teen pregnancy, homophobia and child murder.

Yes, you read that bit right.
If you haven't seen the movie that last part probably came as a big surprise, didn't it?
You see, as part of the process of drifting away from the average, the daughter gets raped on a trampoline by a Jock.
And no, that's not me taking the scene out of context or extrapolating anything.
It is literally a rape scene, played completely straight.
As he is fucking her, she begs him to stop but he wont so then she turns into a giant bug and puts her attacker into a pod then renders him comatose and hides the pod in a cupboard in her room.
Unfortunately, she apparantly did not reveal her bug form soon enough to prevent him impregnating her.

Yes, this is the same movie, why do you ask?

What the fuck?
I mean seriously, who would put a scene like that in a comedy about giant bugs?

This is in a show that features jokes about the giant bugs (in their human disguises) getting upset when people stamp on insects or a scene where someone tunnels into a nuclear power plant and says "anyone got a light?" The workers (in radiation suits) comedically check themselves and realise they dont have a light. The person who tunneled in has turned into his giant bug form in the mean time, says "dont worry, I brought my own" and throws a stick of dynamite to the workers. They catch it and pass it between them light the three stooges before being blown up (which throws them asside but makes no blood.)
You cannot, seriously cannot ever, combine themes of violent rapes with fucking light hearted slap stick!
Well okay you can....but if you do you are a fucking asshole!

The rape scene is not only offensive but completely illogical. How can he be having sex with her if she is really a giant insect in disguise? How can he make her pregnant? Why did she wait till he nearly finished fucking her before stopping him? Why didn't she use her superior strength to disable him before hand? Does that only work when she is not disguised?
AND WHY THE FUCK IS THIS SCENE IN THE MOVIE?

The pregnant daughter then becomes a lesbian, because as we all know, women become lesbians because they are bitter at men for some past mistreatment. You didn't know that was how that worked? Good thing this movie is here to enlighten you.
So yeah, rape and homophobia...funny funny stuff.

But that is actually NOT the most offensive part.
The worst part is when the daughter gives birth.
After much straining a white pod pops out and slides about 15 feet, coming to rest in front of two men who had come to give the family an award for being the most average (the joke being that by the time they arrived, the family are incredibly not average.)
One of these men then stamps on the pupa, spraying everyone in gunge.
After this the daughter sways around in comedy style and faints.

Fuck....me.

They fucking stamped on a fucking baby!
Now you can argue it was a bug baby, but that is a bullshit defence for several reasons.
1- The bugs are intelligent and have feelings etc just like humans (that is the entiure point of the movie.)

2- The baby was half human anyway!

And some guy fucking stamps on it!
Why the fuck does he even do this?
Why would you respond to that situation by stamping on the pod? Where the fuck did that come from?
And what kind of retard would think you could play that sort of thing for laughs?

Anyway, in the end the bugs nearly get lynched by the towns folks, their once loving family has gone to shit due to the influences of human society...and so they decide not to kill all humans.

I was left wondering "Why the fuck not?"
If i lived amongst aliens and they raped my daughter, stomped on her new born baby, tried ot lynch me and my family and the influence of their culture caused my relationship with my wife and kids to disintegrate....damn right i would nuke the fuckers!

Interestingly, the rapist and the baby killers (along with other people they have kidnapped and stashed in cacoons) get released at the end and there seems to be pretty much no hard feelings.
Everyone just lets bygones be bygones.
Sure, why the fuck not?
The letting off of the rapist is especially unpleasant as he was doing this to what he thought was a human girl, suggesting he may have done this before and may well do it again. Fuck, the fact he did it once is enough to make me want to see him fed into a wood chipper!
The parents even express anger at the daughter over what has happened to her, questioning why she took him prisoner and calling her a loser!
Yes, rapists are okay, but their victims are losers who usually end up becoming butch dykes. (When they go back to live with the bugs at the end, she goes back to liking men, as she has recovered from her man hating...the cause of lesbianism.)

So take your pick, unfunny, moronic and cheesey with dumb slap stick and prat falls or so twisted and disgusting as to delve the sludge from the very bottom of the barrel of filth that cinema has managed to produce.

But at least the movie did have an awesome ending!
It cost $5 million dollars.
Made less than half a million at the box office.
It has never received a DVD release.
A very satisfying resolution for this film, I think you will agree.

...

if it never got a dvd release, then how did you see it for this review? VHS?

That's fucked.

The only thing I can imagine is that the big shots in charge of this film spent $2 million on coke and were too fucked up to realize what an abomination the other $3 million had created.

so the revelation that there are intelligent bugs, that can disguise themselves as human, doesn't cause a mass panic through out the world?

Tiberius there are no major consequences to discovering human sized intelligent insects.
This is a film where there are no consequences to raping a girl (as long as someone stamps on the baby!)

I saw this film first on TV one time.

For this review I looked it up on youtube, where you can actually find the entire movie (just in case you don't believe me, do a search on there for meet the applegates.)

Canouveas reaction to this review really says it all.

When I read this part I thought it sounded like what could possibly be the greatest movie ever made.

Then I kept on reading...my reactions were as follows:

"Oh."

"...Oh..."

"......oh......"

"..........oh.........."

Needless to say it's probably the most awkward movie you've ever reviewed.

If I ever get into the film industry I may have to make a movie about bug people living amongst humans but done right and without the rape, lesbian and baby killing...jokes? Is that what they are? I guess if it were played straight then 'scenes' would be a better way to describe it.

...or 'shit' you could go with that too.

Damn, such a potentially awesome idea gone to waste in a movie with rape, homophobia and abortions.

Then again maybe I'm the only one who thinks that it had potential.

I probably am.

Metabad, honestly, no joking, I think you would make a better film than meet the applegates!
Just the simple rule of "avoiding rape in the like hearted comedy" would leave you in good stead.

I cant help but wonder who this movie was meant for.
In places it really feels like a cheesey kids movie...then in other scenes not so much.

Yeah, go ahead Metabad! You are probably right about doing a better job.

With a budget of $30.

Filmed with a hand held.

Using 2 year olds as the actors.

I mean, it sounds like someone read Kafka's Metamorphosis while high on something nasty