I haven't really been making it back to the comments threads for a few months -- I barely have time to be keeping up with the stories (note the fact that I just now listened to this ep almost a month after). This one actually drew me back to the forum.
I can't think of the last time, outside of network television, I've come across something so unoriginal and derivative. I'm rather surprised to look and see that it was 20 minutes, because it felt like much more of a chore to get through. The narrator was boring and unlikable, the wife was the kind of flat, hysterical, folding-under-pressure cannon-fodder female character that gives this genre such a bad name, the monsters, while nightmarish, had very little to set them apart from any other creature-feature, and that's before we got to the enormous cliche of the hairspray flame thrower.
I guess this one just seriously was not for me.
I hate to chime in on the bad review, because I know how hard it can be to write something truly scary (which is why you will see nothing by me anytime soon) but I felt very similarly about this story.
I think for me it just boils down to flat characters. Guys who choose to whack off to old porn they think their wives know nothing about are not that interesting. They're sadly commonplace. My preferred method of torture is simple and requires no evil GS or bugs--just start rifling through boxes or computer files *adjacent* to where they're hiding their stash, in their presence, and see how many excuses they'll come up with to get you away from the offending materials, lest you "find out". Not as horrific, except maybe for the guy, but at least more entertaining than bugs. And just for the record--
we know about the porn--all of it. But seriously, what more is there to this guy? If this were a recipe I'd say it was missing any kind of spice.
And what's up with the boring pregnant lady? I've been around quite a few pregnant women, and they're not boring--prone to mood swings, crazy cravings, forgetfulness, and impulsive behavior. Mix that with the supernatural and you have a recipe that is potentially quite horrific. Bugs are icky, and so are selfish (but mostly harmlessly so, in this case) husbands, but this just didn't do it for me.
On the upside, I loved the reading. (Guess I'm going for opposites today since so many of you said you had trouble with the editing.)