A virulent new disease is killing the children of Manhattan and has reached epidemic proportions. Peter Mann in desperation asks the entomologist, Dr. Susan Tyler, if she can help by killing the disease carrier, the common cockroach. Susan genetically engineers a new species of predatory insect to exterminate the cockroach and then die off. This novel solution works and the children recover but nature isn't the laboratory and things don't exactly go according to plan. Three years later people start to disappear, mutilated bodies are found and wild rumors of giant insects mimicking man start to emerge from the bag people living in the subway under Manhattan. Peter and Susan are called in to investigate.

The escalator in Delancey Street subway station is shown as dismantled for maintenance because the scene was filmed on a Toronto subway station platform that was closed in 1966, so its escalator was removed (See also The Time Shifters (1999) (TV)).

[on insect's inner motivation]


Dr. Gates:
Can I eat it or will it eat me?

Continuity: When Susan leaves the subway car to look for Manny, she can clearly be heard to be calling for Chuy, the little boy.

By Robert Ellen
Used with permission by Molique Music
c/o Warner Chappell Music Canada