Cultural References To Cockroaches - in Film

In Film

  • Joe's Apartment — The bugs are cheerful, swinging party-goers who help the titular human hero.
  • Twilight of the Cockroaches — A hybrid anime/live-action Japanese film featuring a society of cockroaches living in a bachelor's apartment that faces extermination when a cockroach-phobic woman moves in
  • Creepshow — Swarms of them terrorize a cantankerous and verminophobic old man in the segment, "They're Creeping Up On You."
  • Damnation Alley — A post-apocalyptic Salt Lake City, Utah is infected with a four-inch long, flesh-eating mutant variety (played by the Madagascar Hissing Cockroach).
  • Mimic — Diseased cockroaches are the target of the genetically-altered titular species.
  • Bug also starred Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches, this time able to produce fire from their abdomens, wreaking havoc.
  • Men in Black Edgar the Bug actions threaten to lead to the destruction of the Earth.
  • An American Tail, the chief villain, Warren T. Rat, carries with him a cockroach named Digit who he forces to count his money and frequently abuses, even threatening to eat him at one point.
  • Naked Lunch, the main character, William Lee's "case worker" appears to him in the form of large cockroach that speaks through a hole in its abdomen. Later, this cockroach appears again as a hybrid of a cockroach/typewriter that has a keypad on its face. The case worker reveals his name as "Clark Nova", which also happens to be the name of Lee's typewriter model.
  • Godzilla vs Gigan, both King Ghidorah and Gigan are controlled remotely by Nebulans, an alien race of giant cockroaches that inherited a waste planet after the dominant species on it polluted it into oblivion.
  • The 1983 film Scarface, Tony refers to Gaspar Gomez and the Diaz Brothers, rival gang leaders to Frank Lopez, as cockroaches in one of the film's most famous lines: "I'll bury those cock-a-roaches."
  • Pacific Heights — The Michael Keaton character breeds and releases cockroaches in the apartment building as part of his plan against the landlords.
  • A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master — Freddy Krueger kills Debbie by transforming her into a cockroach and trapping her inside a roach motel before crushing the trap.
  • WALL-E — WALL-E keeps a Cockroach as his pet
  • West Side Story — in both the Broadway musical (1957) and film (1961), the Jets, the Anglo-American gang, refers to the Sharks, the Puerto Rican gang, as cockroaches.
  • Enchanted — Cockroaches (and other pests) assist a princess with housecleaning duties such as scrubbing the bathtub.

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