It’s a simple question we all have to ask ourselves sooner or later: Am I the sort of person who enjoys a good ol’ fashioned icky-fun movie about giant bugs? Go ahead and ask yourself. I’ll wait here.

Is the answer yes? Good, because that’s exactly what Infestation intends to be, and for the most part, it delivers. Chris Marquette (Fanboys) stars as Cooper, a fun-loving slacker who is about to be fired from his latest dead-end office job when…something happens. There is a flash of light and Cooper blacks out, only to wake up in the same office covered in a cocoon of webbing. No sooner has he managed to free himself than Cooper finds himself in a life-or-death struggle with a three foot long cockroach-looking creature. After defeating the gruesome beastie and freeing his co-workers from their own cocoons, Cooper and a small group of survivors set out on foot, hoping to find their way through a city infested with enormous creepy-crawlies to the sanctuary of a bomb shelter built by Cooper’s domineering father Ethan (Ray Wise).

Along the way, Cooper attempts to romance his boss’s daughter Sara (Brooke Nevin), fends off the advances of a distraught weathergirl (Kinsey Packard), and learns a few things about his insectoid tormenters. The bugs are blind and rely on sound to hone in on their prey. If they sting you on the small of the back, you’ll soon be sprouting multiple hairy legs of your own. Most importantly, they nest in a giant hive on the outskirts of town, the destruction of which may be the only hope for the survival of the human race.

Writer-director Kyle Rankin, who you may remember as one of the co-directors of The Battle of Shaker Heights from the second season of Project Greenlight, brings a welcome light touch to the proceedings, swerving from goofy to gross-out without missing a beat. Marquette makes for an engaging anti-action hero, and the special effects (supervised by Shaker Heights co-director Efram Potelle) compare favorably with those of the mega-budget bug movie The Mist (which could have benefited from the sense of fun displayed here).

It’s all good fun up until the abrupt, ambiguous ending, which may be an homage to The Sopranos or an awkward set-up for a sequel, but either way plays as too cutesy by half. If you can ignore that, you’ll find Infestation to be an ideal night at the drive-in, assuming you can still find one. As best I can tell, a release date is still up in the air, but in the meantime, here’s a short film from Rankin and Potelle that offers a glimpse of the big bug carnage to come:

Insex