The Age of Insects is Eric Marciano's first feature film. Influenced by Timothy Leary, B-movies and odd television shows from the '50s and '60s, this psycho-horror comedy delivers a sublime and strange account of a mad doctor's hallucinogenic treatments for bad boys.
Filmed in Super 8, 16mm, 35mm, Hi8, 3/4" and Betacam, all before it was fashionable; The Age of Insects has a timeless visual quality, as well as a viscerally bizarre mise en scène. Coupled with the extensive use of creepy-crawly insect footage and computerized sexual imagery, director Marciano's darkly comic vision is sublime fun.
-- David E. Williams, Film Threat, April 1992
"This movie is the Citizen Kane of underground films-- intelligent, funny, engrossing."
-- Joe Bob Briggs, January 24, 1994
The film was acquired for the permanent film collection of the Museum of Modern Art in 2017 and screened there on February 3rd, 2018 as part of the "Club 57: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, 1978-1983 show" which ran from October 31st 2017 to April 1st 2018.
The screening which included Marciano's films "Narrowcast" and "Spin Cycles", drew a large and eclectic mix of new enthusiasts, old friends and cast & crew.
A few things became clear from the screening; all three films have held up to the test of time and indeed seem downright ahead of their time. There will always be an audience for the weird and edgy. However, the mainstream media and digital worlds co-ops everything so quickly that it gets harder and harder to find work that is truly weird without being completely satanic.