Logline: Neurotic entomologist Silas Sawyer returns to the Rust Belt town of Bairdston for his father’s funeral, only to be caught in the horrendousmystery of the killer insects that destroyed him.
Cicada Summer in the Midwest is difficult to describe to anyone who hasn’t borne witness to it, especially in 2024 when the 17-year cicada brood and the 13-year brood hit at once. The idea of insects that crawl out of the ground to breed and die also being flesh-eating monsters wrote itself.
Well, mostly. The idea of using a Great Lakes-Rust Belt community arose from thinking about the false note appeals to the ‘left behind’ people of America often are. Blending the setting and the monster worked well.
I think there’s potential to make this have the monster-action creativity of, say, Tremors, but with more exploration of what it means to live in a place that’s dying and is supposed to be replaced, by killer bugs or otherwise.