MEET THE APPLEGATES

   Film (1990). New World/Cinemarque. Dir Michael Lehmann, starring Ed Begley Jr, Stockard Channing, Bobby Jacoby, Cami Cooper, Dabney Coleman. Screenplay Redbeard Simmons, Lehmann. 89 mins. Colour.

   In this sf/fantasy SATIRE, a group of shapeshifting giant insects from the South American rainforest, disturbed at humanity's destruction of their domain, disguise themselves as human and infiltrate a small US town, where they plan to get revenge by causing a nuclear meltdown at the local power plant. Their knowledge of human life being gleaned largely from Dick and Jane books, they begin as apparently stereotyped upright citizens, but are soon corrupted by US society, becoming a secretary-screwing husband, a consumer-product-obsessed shoplifting wife, a pregnant radical lesbian feminist daughter and a dope-smoking son. MTA is witty and pointed, but stops this side of hilarious because its affability dilutes the savagery to which it appears to aspire.

   PN

   See also: MONSTER MOVIES.