Dr. Peter Axelrod (John Heard) works for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Virginia. He has been working on a project for the department of defense in addition to his regular job at the Virginia Institute of Agriculture. Peter has been working with locusts. His boss is Maddy Rierdon (Lucy Lawless). When Maddy finds out that one of the labs was red flagged by the Government Accountability Office and that the work being done is classified, she goes there to investigate.
Peter takes Maddy to see what he has been working on. He extracts a locust from a glass room full of them. He demonstrates to Maddy that the insect is impervious to insecticide. The locusts are a hybrid of the Australian plague locust with a desert locust. He engineered them to reproduce faster and live longer. Realizing that they are a bioweapon, Maddy orders that the locust be exterminated and that the research be shut down. She then fires Peter. Technicians are brought in to burn the locust with flame throwers. One of the technicians absconds with a few of the locust. He manages to lose several of them down the sink where they make their way through the sewer system and into the air.
The locusts that didn’t escape are brought to Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland where they are flown to California. In California the remaining locusts escape when an accident occurs and the jar they were in breaks. Now there are bioengineered locusts on both ends of the continent. The locusts multiply at a phenomenal rate and begin swarming. As they cross the continent from both sides the locusts eat everything in sight. When the crops are gone, the locust become carnivorous and begin eating livestock. As they become more aggressive, they begin to attack and bite humans.
Maddy’s husband Dan Dyrer (Dylan Neal) works as the United Nations Agricultural Attaché. He is called in to try to help figure out what to do about the locusts. Peter, who had engineered the creatures, is determined to atone for creating them. The department of defense wants to use a highly dangerous nerve gas on the insects. The result would mean that approximately 10% of the human population in that area could die. Unless Maddy, Dan and Peter can come up with a better idea, the DOD believes that their solution would result in an acceptable collateral damage.
“Locusts” AKA “Locusts: Day of Destruction” was released in 2005 and was directed by David Jackson. It is a made for television eco-horror, science fiction, disaster movie. Originally done for CBS the film was also shown on the Hallmark Chanel.
Despite its lack of pedigree, I had fun watching this movie. The special effects, for the most part, are not all that great, but some of the swarm effects were OK and the close ups of the locusts are actually creepy.
The story is your typical disaster movie scenario. There were lots of intense scenes and a fair amount of swarming. The solution to the problem was a bit outlandish but the locusts were quickly dispensed with, and a rosy ending ensued. I’m not spoiling anything, that’s how most of them end.
Lucy Lawless fans will definitely watch it. Lawless and her co-star Dylan Neal also did a movie called “Vampire Bats” that same year.