Writer Tracy Lett’s explores the variety of meanings in the word “bug”. In addition to the noun used to describe an insect or an illness, there is also the electronic listening device. There is also the word “bug” as in to annoy someone, as when Ashley Judd keeps on getting phone calls with no one speaking at the other end.

One thing to make clear is that Bug is not a horror movie. The ads note that this is the new film from William Friedkin, director of The Exorcist. In truth Bug is a thriller of paranoia that is closer in spirit to Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation. Ashley Judd portrays Agnes, a woman, down, but not completely out, who lives in a dump of a motel in Oklahoma. The several overhead shots of the Rustic Motel indicate that the location is truly in the middle of nowhere. Introduced by her friend R.C., Agnes invites the gentle, if eccentric, Peter, to stay with her. Agnes’ ex-husband, Jerry, also shows up to create havoc in Agnes’ life. Slowly warming up to each other, Agnes and Peter have sex following a few days of living together. Things start to unravel when Peter claims to have been bitten by a microscopic bug.

The origin of Bug as a stage play are obvious in the structure. Agnes’ room changes from from being a simple flea bag hole, to a darker place festooned with bug strips hanging throughout, to a blue tinged prison with all of the walls covered by aluminum foil. Most of the time, the film does not look stagey without Friedkin relying on flashy technique. While Bug is not quite the return of form for William Friedkin, the film suggests a career going full circle in how it refers to his past work. Friedkin’s earliest films include two adaptations of plays that primarily took place in one location, The Birthday Party and The Boys in the Band. A brief scene in a lesbian bar also recalls a distaff twist on Friedkin’s notorious Cruising. Most clearly, when Michael Shannon, as Peter, undergoes a scene of spastic contortions on the motel bed, in a personal hell both physical and pyschological, there is the memory of Linda Blair in The Exorcist. The incendiary ending certainly recalls Sorcerer.

One reason to see Bug in a theater is for the sound design. The audience, like the characters, are toyed with. One is never certain whether one is listening to a loud ceiling fan or a helicoptor, a cricket or a smoke detector with a dead battery. Even when Agnes and Peter become overwhelmed by their shared paranoia and insular existence, there is the suspicion that there is more than meets the eye, that their nightmare is rooted in reality. Those looking for Exorcist type thrills in Bug might be disappointed. There are no priests battling devils, just a lonely pair of people descending into their own private hell.