SKEETER on the one hand is clearly influenced by typical mutant monster movies of the 50s like THEM or TARANTULA, on the other hand it owes its existence certainly to successful movies of the 90s that tell similar stories, such as TREMORS or TICKS. To come straight to the point: The biggest drawback of the film is its running time of 91 minutes. There is not enough substance to the story for this. In this respect director Clark Brandon should have been guided more by movies from the 50s, which rarely exceeded the 80 minute mark. This could have been a thrilling movie. As it is, we have to deal with a long exposure and a rather dreary love story between a pretty boy Deputy and the red haired village beauty. Even the subplot about a vicious building tycoon seems very much out of place. Regarding the build up of tension, SKEETER works along the line of classic monster movies. But Brandon tries to do something different with the scenes between the mosquito attacks and to not just stretch the running time (well, mostly). Brandon's style deviates significantly from what is common in most contemporary B-monster-movies. He more often than not works with clear, almost static shots, frequently taken slightly from below. Thus, the protagonist are standing around like lost in somewhat unreal and inhospitable landscapes as if they don't belong there. This impression is reinforced by the special light of the desert which is used very effectively by the director. With these scenes, the film, which was almost entirely shot on location, describes man as an intruder into a world, seemingly motionless for ages, a world whose balance is destroyed by man, thus evoking his own destruction. In this sense, quite apart from the rather simplistic presented toxic waste problem, SKEETER is, albeit on a modest level, a warning against home-made environmental disasters. In this regard, the film stands also in the tradition of classic monster movies, who frequently point to the dangers of nuclear disaster. The mostly unknown cast of the film, aside from Napier and Sanderson, are doing an acceptable job, albeit Jim Youngs comes off as a rather pale hero. The incomparable Charles Napier has, in fact, the best scene of the movie, as he, already dying, grabs one of the mosquitoes, crushing it with his bare hands, shouting: "I got one! I got one!" The special effects are mostly acceptable for a low budget movie like this, albeit not entirely convincing. Especially the "mosquito-point-of-view" shots, done with a special camera, are undoubtedly an asset to the film. SKEETER is certainly not more than an average B-monster movie with a few lengths, but due to its effective and sympathetic style it stands out positively from the usual direct-to-video stuff.
