Locusts: The 8th Plague is a 2005 Sci-Fi Channel horror movie about killer locusts attacking a town in Idaho.
The story involves a company trying to genetically engineer carnivorous locusts that would eat other insects instead of crops. But of course (given the genre) they create bugs that eat everything with flesh instead, and of course they accidentally escape and begin attacking people.
A local entomologist, his veterinarian love interest, and a special government agent try to find a way to kill the swarm, while the people responsible for the disaster try to destroy the evidence against them.
The title is a reference to the eight plagues brought by God on the Egyptians as mentioned in The Bible, though the movie itself has nothing to do with that (other than the inclusion of a doomsayer character who keeps quoting the Bible.)
Tropes in Locusts: The 8th Plague:
- Artistic License – Biology: The mutated locusts are somehow immune to ALL pesticides, never mind their chemical composition, except organic ones. How does that work?
- Attack of the Killer Whatever: Locusts that eat people (in seconds, too.) Note that the fact real locusts are a menace because they can cause famines (by eating crops overnight) is mentioned in the film.
- The End... Or Is It?: In the end, some time after the swarm of flesh-eating locusts are killed in an explosion, we see one more truck with possibly with hundreds of hungry locusts in the rear compartment headed towards another crop dome, which implies that there could be another swarm attack someday.
- Eye Scream: During an attack at an amusement park, a locust pulls an eye out of a guest's eye socket with it's pincers.
- Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: The genetic-engineered locusts were originally made to eat other bugs that would destroy crops. As you would guess, however, the experiment went wrong, as the locusts eat anything that's made out of meat.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The really corrupt executive tries to escape town before being arrested, but of course runs into the swarm.
- Improbable Infant Survival: Applied in a horrible way: a kid survives the swarm inside a car, but gets to watch his parents get eaten alive. It leaves him catatonic (cracking his skull on the steering wheel when he drives into a tree while trying to escape probably didn't help).
- Police Are Useless: Zig-zagged: The authorities are actually competent and well-equipped, it's just that the bugs turned out to be much tougher than expected. More importantly, the agent in charge actually listens to the heroes.
- Redemption Equals Death: One of the executives responsible for the experiment (who also happens to be the father of the veterinarian) dies killing the swarm (with a bomb.)
- Strictly Formula: Like in most monster movies: the menace is created by human greed and carelessness; only a few people are killed at first and then a full carnage begins; normal weapons don't work against them; the nerds are the only ones who can stop it; the people responsible are killed by their own creation; and of course the ending suggests the bugs might have survived. The only real subversion is with Police Are Useless.
- Tempting Fate: The local religious fanatic who kept warning about The Apocalypse and how he would be spared because of his faith? Yeah, he dies.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The army wants to use its most powerful chemical weapons on the swarm, never mind they would also poison the local area forever.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Yay, the organic pesticide killed the swarm!! ...Oops, there's another one?
