Mimic, The Notoriously Interfered-with 2nd Film From Director Guillermo del Toro, Comes to 4K From Kino Lorber, Including Both The Director’s and Theatrical Cut!
What if there were human sized Cockroaches that hunted us for sport? Sounds like the type of movie Roger Corman or William Girdler or Bruno Mattei would put out, filled with gore gags and exposed breasts. But, nope; This descent into insect hostilities comes from multiple Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro; that film is 1997’s Mimic, now on 4K from Kino Lorber!
1997 should’ve been a great year for del Toro; after 5 years of languishing in director limbo after 1992’s Cronos, he finally had his next at bat, and from his own (adapted) script, to boot. If only anyone could’ve warned him about the human shit-covered speed train he was about to hit in Harvey Weinstein.
Mimic is famous for its behind the scenes drama, as Weinstein attempted to fire del Toro during production, with Mira Sorvino’s heavy pushback being one of the only things that kept him on the picture (which also caused the destruction of her career; man, fuck Harvey Weinstein). The film was taken away from del Toro and edited without his supervision. For years, it’s been viewed as a “lesser” cut, until a director’s cut finally made it to Blu-Ray disc in 2011, and now onto 4K in 2026.
This is really just a long winded way of saying; watch the director’s cut.
For those familiar with del Toro, Mimic is a film that doesn’t feel like his usual foray into the fantastical. While abnormally large anthropomorphic creatures are very much up his alley, this is one of the few times that the creatures are out and out monsters. Whereas most of the nightmarish monsters that fill del Toro’s films are humanized to some extent, even sympathetic, There is no softness or humanity for these gargantuan roaches; they are mean, vicious bugs that only look to kill and breed.
Which also causes this to be one of the meaner films del Toro ever directed. While he’s been known to put flashes of ultra violence in his other films, there is still this warmth that exists underneath them. There is no such warmth here; this is a bleak, violent film that is filled with a surprising amount of child death, both in the background of the story as well as in the brutal death of two street youths about halfway through.
It’s also a stylistically strange film. Coming only a few years after the smash success of Se7en, Mimic is working overtime to mimic (ba-dum-tsk) the look of that stylistic serial killer thriller, going as far to give a stuttering, creepy intro sequence that is almost a 1-for-1 of the Se7en opening credits. The look is consistent throughout, but feels real out of place once the 3rd act shifts into big-cgi-bug action.
That’s all to say that this is an intensely weird film from an incredibly talented director who was essentially hogtied through production. As such, it’s an incredibly unique artifact of late ‘90s cinema; A pre-9/11 NYC, Se7en aesthetics, a cast that mostly didn’t seem to leave the decade (Mira Sorvino, Jeremy Northam, Alix Koromzay, Charles S. Dutton), and a lot of real bad CGI. For someone who kinda/sorta remembers 1997 (as much as a kindergartener could at the time), I found it weirdly comforting.
Specs:
For what felt like a cut we’d never get, the director’s cut on the 4K disc looks immaculate, coming from a brand new HDR/Dolby Vision master of the 35mm original camera negative. There are a few quality dips on the added material, but barely any that you can notice.
For special features, Kino delivers with 2 different commentaries, one for the director’s cut (from del Toro) and one for the theatrical (from horror cinema expert Arne Venema & cinema author Stefan Hammond). There is also a video prologue from del Toro, 3 different featurettes, deleted scenes, storyboards, a gag reel and theatrical trailers.
While it may have seemed like the end of his career in ‘97, del Toro has since become one of the most lauded filmmakers of his generation, directing nearly a dozen beloved films since and earning himself 3 Oscars. While Mimic has become a bit of a footnote in his illustrious career, it is still a unique trip through the fantastical mind of a master, filtered through heavy studio interference and ‘90s era goodness.
