What happens when an entomologist is also a hard-core sci-fi and horror fanatic? You get a taxonomy of television’s creepiest bug episodes.
Bug episodes are rare, but when done correctly, they are among the creepiest in the genre. What follows is a curated tour of the creepiest bug episodes ever aired. From parasitic infestations to hostile hive-minds, these episodes reflect our culture’s worst fears of insects and, through creative storytelling, what we fear in ourselves.
This list will contain spoilers, but the most recent episode on it is at least 4 years old. Also, this is not an exhaustive list, just the ones I’ve seen over the course of my science fiction and horror-watching lifetime. The Creepscore is a composite of how well done the episode is overall, plus how creepy the bug elements are.
Swarm Horror: It’s all about the numbers
Swarm horror plays on our very real fear of being smothered, covered, and outnumbered. It’s a fear as old as humanity and a key plague of the Bible. Swarming is characteristic of several insect families; we see it especially in hymenoptera (bees, wasps, ants) and orthoptera (locusts, crickets). The X-Files dominates this category. In fact, The X-Files has the most bug episodes and, in my opinion, the creepiest. For an excellent read on insect swarms and the human psyche, I highly recommend Jeffrey Lockwood’s The Infested Mind.
The X-Files
“War of the Coprophages”
Season 3, Episode 12
1996
Mulder and Scully try to figure out why cockroaches swarm whenever someone in the small town of Miller’s Grove, Mass., dies. For the fear factor, swarming roaches tap into both fear and disgust responses. The fact that they are genetically engineering metallic, powered-up roaches harkens back to the 1950s and 1960s bug horror theme of scientific hubris. The episode is one of the creepier of the already creepy first season, and the title, War of the Coprophages, literally means War of the Poop Eaters. It serves as a season anchor for the Mulder and Scully “will they or won’t they” when a hot entomologist named Bambi caught Mulder’s eye and makes Scully jealous, which is also uncomfortable to watch. Creepscore: 8/10.
The X-Files
“Darkness Falls”
Season 1, Episode 20
1994
Mulder and Scully find themselves in an old-growth forest in Washington State as loggers and eco-terrorists are found dead, wrapped in webbing. They have to outrun tiny insects in order to survive until morning. This episode does a lot of work. It carries the theme of nature’s revenge, with ancient insects emerging from the clear-cut forest, and it conveys the fear of swarms as our heroes barely escape with their lives. Lots of suspense, and seeing bodies vaguely emerging from webs is the creepiest factor. Creepscore: 6/10.
Supernatural
“Bugs”
Season 1, Episode 8
2005
Sam and Dean travel to Oklahoma after hearing that a member of a construction crew was killed by beetles. The episode is infamous for how bad it is; it’s the second-lowest-rated episode in the series, out of 327 total on IMDb. Even the creator, Eric Kripke, regrets the episode. It’s also the first time Sam and Dean are mistaken for a gay couple. Early in the episode, the “freak son” is suspected because of his interest in insects. Sam mentors the kid a bit, assuring him that being a nerd will be an asset in college. The writing pairs fears of swarms with environmental revenge (due to a curse placed on the land by indigenous people). Then all hell breaks loose as the curse goes into effect and all kinds of insects attack our heroes. Though a poorly-received episode, the creep factor on this one is very high. Creepscore: 8/10.
Doctor Who
Arachnids in the UK
Episode 280
2018
Toxic waste causes spiders to mutate under a luxury hotel. Some grow to large sizes. Some swarm. Some are just present out of season. But they have developed a taste for humans since their natural prey are now too small. The Doctor tries to save both the humans and the spiders, who she argues have done nothing wrong. Human bodies wrapped in a spiderweb, and their insides being liquified, is horrific and creepy. The episode appears to be a nod to the big-bug horror films of the 1950s, in which nuclear testing led to giant insects. Creepscore: 5/10.
Bug Sex: It’s creepy
Obviously, insects have a much different sexual biology than humans, which is why that biology often stands in as a metaphor for violations of sexual morality. Insects are viewed as fecund, robotic, and compulsive. In many cultures, human sexuality involves meaning and intention, ritual, and modesty. When insect traits are mapped onto human sexuality, it hits some especially creepy notes and confronts those human norms around sexual behavior.
Supernatural
“The Chitters”
Season 11, Episode 19
2016
A Colorado town has a 27-year cycle of missing persons, and the culprit is a “bisaan,” or a cicada spirit from Malaysian mythology. The cycle of missing persons echoes the emergence of periodical cicadas. The bisaan needs a human host to continue its reproductive cycle, and that means a bit of possession mixed with a bit of body horror. And orgies. And they use cicada buzzing as a mating call. The bisaan makes people want to have sex out in the open. This is another example of human interpretation of insect behavior mapped onto human psychology. Compulsive sexuality is an insectoid trait, alien to the human experience. Bonus: This episode features the first married gay couple as hunters. Creepscore: 8/10.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
“Teacher’s Pet”
Season 1, Episode 4
1997
Buffy’s first season is regarded as among the worst as the show tried to gain its footing with creature-of-the-week features. In Teacher’s Pet, one of the gang’s teachers is behaving strangely, especially since she seems to have the hots for Xander. Turns out she’s a demonic praying mantis trying to get pregnant via the teen boys of Sunnydale. The insinuation of statutory rape in this episode is creepy enough, but the woman turned human-sized praying mantis attempting to mount her students? Maximum creep a hint of misogyny. Creepscore: 6/10.
Masters of Horror
“Sick Girl”
Season 1, Episode 10
2006
Ida, an entomologist, starts a sapphic relationship that quickly becomes doomed by an undescribed Brazilian insect species she nicknames Mick. It feeds on, then mates with, the protagonist’s date, Misty. The homophobic landlord evicts them while Misty begins an adventure in some seriously creepy body horror that includes sex dreams about the insect. Ida’s coworker jokes, “You are gonna have to make a choice: babes or bugs. You can’t have both.” It turns out, in Masters of Horror, you can. Creepscore: 6/10.
Grimm
Tarantella
Season 1, Episode 11
2012
A creature, the spinnetod, is part human, part spider. It must kill to complete its growth cycle. The female spinnetod mates with young men, then kills them. This fairytale is modeled after the black widow or woman-as-spider trope. The creep factor is pretty high when the spinnetods use their power. Creepscore: 5/10.
The Invasion of the Self: Parasites and Body Horror
As humans, we’re pretty fond of our bodily autonomy. We don’t like other creatures getting inside our bodies, especially because that usually results in pain or illness. Tapeworms, flukes, leeches, ticks, and mosquitoes are among the most reviled creatures on the planet for those reasons. It’s no wonder that this fear and disgust become even more elevated when these parasites can control our every move. They not only take over our bodies, but also our minds.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
“Bad Eggs”
Season 2, Episode 12
1998
The gang is given eggs to look after in the classic home economics lesson about raising a child. The school sits on a hellmouth, so of course, the eggs are filled with demonic, isopod-looking creatures that answer to a demonic creature the gang calls Mama Bezoar. These creatures attach to humans, turning them into drones serving the Bezoar. There are some extremely gross moments in this creature-of-the-week episode, and the parasitic nature of the multi-legged larval bezoars is creepy and solidly insect-coded. Creepscore: 6/10.
The X-Files
“Roadrunners”
Season 8, Episode 4
2000
A cult worships a slug that it tries to implant into travelers who happen to find their way into that cult’s desert settlement. At about 18 inches long, the creep factor is high, and the scenes where it’s implanted into various people get into some pretty serious body horror. But what makes this episode so incredibly creepy is the cult members and their unyielding belief that the slug is a god. This adds a relatively novel spin on some old themes around religion and mind control. Creepscore: 9/10.
Stargate SG-1
“Bane”
Season 2, Episode 10
1998
Dragonfly-like insects can inject their DNA into humans, causing them to metamorphose and eventually replicate inside the humans. This episode features some body horror as the bodies change inside and out, eventually becoming a pupa from which dozens of insects emerge to begin the cycle again. Creepscore: 6/10.
The Queen & the Hive: Control, control, and control
Sometimes it’s less about the bugs and more about the humans. In this sub-genre, humans are the villains who control the insects. Hive themes represent the stripping away of humanity. They convey conformity, hierarchy, and depersonalization. They are largely metaphors for systems to control humans, but also human needs for control and power. Either way, free will is stripped away, and base instincts rule.
Smallville
“Drone”
Season 1, Episode 18
2002
Sasha Woodman remixes Reese Witherspoon’s character Tracy Flick in 1999’s Election with Jennifer Connelly’s insect-controlling abilities in 1985’s Phenomena with Madame Van Bohlen’s killer bee mastery in 1974’s Killer Bees. That’s a lot of films to name-drop, but the commonality among them all is women. Drone is a derivative episode of a long-standing theme in horror and sci-fi that associates women with bees and wasps. The fear of the strong, controlling queen lies at the heart of this trope. This episode is creepy mainly for the misogyny, but the swarms are unsettling, too. Creepscore: 4/10.
X files
Lord of the Flies
Season 9, Episode 5
2001
This episode from the Mulder-less later seasons features some pretty creepy insect horror. The episode opens with a young man whose skull appears to have been crushed, but it turns out flies had actually eaten everything inside, and the skull had instead collapsed. That’s the first five minutes, and the episode proceeds to get even creepier from there. Don’t believe me?
There are pubic lice that learn how to spell by causing welts on people’s skin. Seriously creepy stuff. Creepscore: 9/10.
Black Mirror
“Hated in the Nation”
Season 3, Episode 6
2016
Black Mirror often takes the psychological thrills to their most extreme, and this episode is no exception. Robot bees murder the most disliked people on social media, according to a hashtag-led algorithm. Is it creepy? Not in the traditional insect-horror way. The robot bees are actually kind of cute. It is an incredibly frightening episode, however, in which insect imagery carries deeply meaningful implications about mass sociopathy. It provides a not-so-subtle metaphor about the danger of hate speech and the consequences of social media pile-ons. The bees stand in for the swarming nature of a social media mob. Creepscore: 9/10.
Doctor Who
“The Unicorn and the Wasp”
Season 4, Episode 10
2008
Companion Donna (the amazing Catherine Tate) and the Doctor attend a 1920s dinner party with Agatha Christie, and a shape-shifting giant wasp crashes the party and offs a few people. In some odd way, the wasp is controlled by Agatha Christie’s novels. David Tennant’s Doctor is cheesy, campy, and fun, which blunts the creepy. The computer-generated wasp isn’t bad for 2025, and the fact that it shifts from wasp to human form makes it a fun — and creepy — murder mystery. Creepscore: 6/10.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars
“Legacy of Terror” and “Brain Invaders”
Season 2, Episodes 7 and 8
2009
An insect-humanoid creature, Queen Karina of the Geonosians, tries to use her parasitic worms to control Lumaria and, eventually, Anakin and Obi-Wan. The Geonosians have characteristics of social insects, including a hive, a queen, and workers. The Jedis subdue the queen, but by the next episode, one of her worms finds its way into a clone, and the clone then distributes the worms throughout a supply ship, infecting many more. The storyline combines the slug/worm theme with a queen/hive vibe. Creepscore: 6/10.
Grimm
Beeware
Season 1, Episode 3
2012
In the Grimm universe, Mellifers are bee-human hybrids (the common Western Honeybee is Apis mellifera), and they are introduced in this episode. They control bees but also resemble bees when they “woge,” or change from their human form. In this episode, the Mellifers are killing off the Hexenbiests (essentially a witch) using both bee swarms and the venom that the Mellifers contain in their stingers. When the Mellifers “woge,” it’s a pretty creepy body horror effect. Creepscore: 7/10.
Love, Death & Robots
“Swarm”
Volume 3, Episode 6
2022
This is an extremely unique bug horror episode. Two scientists study a hive of alien insect-like creatures until the queen discovers their true reason for studying them: to exploit them. It doesn’t go well for the scientists when they are forcibly integrated into the hive, with some extremely creepy body-horror effects. Creepscore: 9/10.
Honorable mentions
These episodes are either marginal, the bug isn’t the main plot driver, or the theme doesn’t fit the tropes outlined above.
Star Trek: Voyager
Macrocosm
Season 3, Episode 12
1996
Giant viruses that buzz like mosquitoes threaten the Enterprise. It’s not quite a bug feature, but it has some of the elements. The virus invades the crew’s bodies, controlling them, and grows to the size of dogs.
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Conspiracy
Season 1, Episode 25
1988
Bug-like creatures control the minds of the leadership of Starfleet. We don’t get to see much of the bugs until the end. When we do, they are reminiscent of the mind-control creature Khan used on Checkov in Wrath of Khan: the Ceti eel larva.
Star Trek: Enterprise
Xindi-Insectoids (Season 3 arc)
The Xindi are a species of several races, and one is insectoid. These characters are a part of season three, and less about the horrors of insects — though the insectoid Xindi mirrors human conceptions of insects — and more about the politics of Star Trek.
Doctor Who
The Green Death (1973)
Planet of the Spiders (1974)
The Ark in Space (1975)
These are bug-heavy serials, but don’t qualify as episodes in the same ways the ones chosen above do. They essentially represent a full movie’s worth of content… and then some.
Primeval
Various episodes
Creatures from the past and future emerge through a time anomaly, and sometimes they are bugs (Season 1, Episode 2 has a prehistoric centipede that’s about 20 feet long). Generally, the series included one or two bug episodes each season. These were loosely based on actual prehistoric bugs.
The way we think about bugs maps neatly onto the tropes we created to scare ourselves. Bug horror is so successful because it taps into our disgust of insects, arachnids, leeches, worms, and everything in between. The creativity of science fiction allows us to envision the different ways these creatures could destroy our lives and society if reality were shifted even slightly.
