Over the past few years the Sci-Fi Channel has gotten a reputation for pumping out dopey, low-budget creature features that soon arrive on DVD a few months later. Mosquito Man is no exception, though from the looks of things this Nu Image production (yes, Nu Image, but don't worry it's not as bad as most of their stuff is) was intended for release either overseas in theatres or direct-to-video.

Starting its life under the awesome B-movie flavoured title, Mansquito, this stars Corin Nemec (who some of us might remember from the Ferris Bueller riffing TV show, Parker Lewis Can't Lose) as a detective who is forced to hunt down a vicious convict. However, said convict just so happens to have mutated into a half-man/half-mosquito when his flubbed escape attempt in the middle of a pharmaceutical companies lab caused an explosion that fused him with radiation and mosquito DNA.

From there Nemec has to try and stop the rampaging monster who seems to be randomly attacking people in the streets until the script decides to let us know our pal the Mansquito is actually after Nemec's scientist girlfriend Musetta Vander - who just happens to be the head scientist at the lab and was splashed with enough of the mosquito goo to make her very appealing to a giant, mutated, and quite horny Mansquito.

Director Tibor Takacs has made a few of these types of films before (The Gate and Killer Rats) and he manages to bring some zing to the proceedings during a hospital massacre scene in the last half-hour, unfortunately to get there and its decent carnage (that includes a cool "headslice" effect) we have to sit through a strictly routine story that takes the basic idea behind The Fly and mixes it with the "creature on the rampage" formula.

That's not to say Mosquito Man, well, sucks. It's just so by-the-book that it never rises above being anything more than skippable. However, the creature effects aren't too bad looking and while they are a little bit dopey at least they don't rely on heavy CGI and went with the old "man in a rubber suit" stand-by; and at least my question of "where's his wings?" was answered before I got frustrated I couldn't see our mutated beast flying around causing havoc.

If you're looking for a harmless enough timewaster then Mosquito Man fits the bill okay. It's generally well done, the acting is acceptable (apart from Vander who overacts quite a bit), and there's some pleasing havoc in the finale - just don't expect anything more than a silly monster flick. (Chris Hartley, 8/2/05)

Directed By: Tibor Takacs.
Written By: Mike Hurst.

Starring: Corin Nemec, Musetta Vander, Matthew Jordon, Patrick Dreikhaus.

Picture Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: First Look presents the film with a clean and pretty clear transfer. I didn't really notice any clarity issues and it certainly looks better than a lot of low-budget movies have on DVD.

Extras: The copy I had didn't include any extras, but according to the box this contains only a handful of previews and nothing else.