The first time I saw this movie was in 2001 on VHS and the younger me saw a really good monster movie that made me fear Cockroaches and other such insects after seeing them evolve in this movie to a bigger and more disgusting insectoid.

I recently rewatched this movie in 2019 after someone told me it's actually a Guillermo Del Toro movie and as a big fan of his movies I wanted to see what I had missed all those years ago and honestly I have a bigger appreciation for this movie as an adult and movie buff what I thought was a simple monster movie was actually a lot more interesting and thought out than I realised with great cinematography suspence and a dark and gritty look to the movie that after watching the characters move around in disgusting wet and moldy subway tunnels makes you wanna take a shower afterwards.

The movie follows Dr Susan Taylor (Mira Sorvino) a scientist and insect specialist and her husband Dr Peter Mann (Jeremy Northam) who is a specialist on diseases for the CDC who after an outbreak of a deadly disease that is carried by Cockroaches that is deadly to children they work together to create a new breed of Cockroache that when released into the insect population kills all other Cockroaches then dies unable to breed or survive longer than designed to three years pass and all signs of the disease have vanished but now people have been dissappearing in the subways of the city and Susan comes across a new breed of Cockroache with the same genetic markers as the ones she created only these are much bigger smarter and have evolved to mimic there predators humans now she and her husband take to the subway tunnels to find out how the Cockroaches survived and undo the mess they created.

I highly recommend this movie to any horror movie fan and fans of monster movies Del Toro brings his unique style of writing and directing to this movie and even though this is considered a B movie and Del Toros early work its still worth your time and gives the effort of an A movie.

I recommend getting the 2017 Directors Cut release of the movie either on Blu Ray or DVD it is much better than the theatrical release and has added scenes and is remastered for better quality also the special features and interviews with Del Toro are interesting and in them he is quoted as saying "This version of the movie is what I wanted to create from the start"

Just like the giant cockroaches in the movie mimic their predators (humans), director Guillermo Del Toro mimics David Fincher's style in "Seven": gimmicky opening credits, excessively dark photography, constant rain, claustrophobic atmosphere. Nonetheless, it is his superior craftsmanship and visual sense that elevates this otherwise standard, conventional monster movie into an above-average standard, conventional monster movie. He is helped, of course, by a capable cast (Mira Sorvino holds her own as the lead), and by the impressively designed creatures, which look much better than the monsters in some more recent horror films. (**1/2)