The Satan Bug

A government agent must recover stolen vials of a deadly virus from a madman determined to rule the world.

The Satan Bug is director John Sturges inexplicable follow-up to The Great Escape.

Gone are the wide open spaces that he utilized to such great effect in films like The Great Escape, The Magnificent Seven, and Escape From Fort Bravo, instead they’re replaced by soundstage lab sets that date the film horribly.

Missing also, is a star-sudden ensemble cast in the vein of The Great Escape or The Magnificent Seven. Here, Sturges commands a stable of mostly B-movie veterans led by former TV star George Maharis. While they’re all surprisingly serviceable, no one is a real standout and the film suffers for it.

The script by James Clavell and Edward Anhalt from the Alistair MacLean novel bears a passing resemblance to a season of the Fox television series 24, though it’s neither tense nor believable and loses what little momentum it has in the third act.