Directed by: Jim Wynors
Run Time: 84 minutes
Today's review is a remake of Roger Corman's 1959 The Wasp Woman. Thought the lord of low budget B movies produced this one instead directing , it still has all the cheese one can expect of a B movie. Without further padding on to the review.
The story centers around Janice (Jennifer Rubin), a woman that created a successful cosmetics company, is the CEO of the company she made, and is the model of the product line. However declining sales and nervous investors are forcing her just to step down from being the company's model. Though not all hope is lost as Dr. Zinthorp has a plot convenient solution to Janice's age issue. Dr. Zinthorp, a disgraced medical researcher, has made a breakthrough in anti-aging by sciencing the hell out of wasp stuff. He also is running low on research funds and is clueless on how to sell the research he has done so far.
This becomes painfully obvious when Janice meets Dr. Zinthorp in person and all he has as a presentation is a lot science jargon and no test results. Not wanting the next big thing in anti-aging to slip through her fingers Janice has Zinthorp test his serum on his cat. A few days later the cat reverts to a kitten and Janice wants to move to testing this serum on herself. A move that has nothing to do with the new young model that was hired to replace Janice. The doctor starts with a small dose to start the human testing phase of this serum. Though Janice may experience feelings of paranoia and have random hallucinations it will make her look younger in two or three months.
Playing it safe is not something Janice is willing to do and sneaks back into lab to increase her dosage. This does have the effect of making her look like she is in her late twenties. It also makes her think that her boyfriend is romantically involved with other women and that she is turning into a human wasp monster. Back at Dr. Zinthorp's lab, the test kitty has mutated into a killer wasp cat. This monster cat then lures and kill Dr. Zinthorp in a near by service tunnel. Then is promptly forgotten.
Things get worse for Janice as well. Her paranoia has gone from annoying to dialed past eleven. She also starts seducing men that called her old, trying to destroy her business, and who betrayed her trust. This leads to her turning into a human wasp monster with bad nineties CGI effects. Followed by tame but horrific murder of the people in question. The third act see Janice sort of embracing her monstrous nature and forcing a final conflict between herself and the few surviving people left in her life.
At of the end of the day it's fun cheesy monster movie made for cable. Because it was made in the nineties for cable so there is more nudity and the killing is more graphic than the 1959 edition. There is not a lot to this movie outside of it being a fun monster movie. It's a fun movie if there is nothing on, the weather outside is crappy, or you can't sleep. If it shows up on cable or a streaming service give it a watch.
MVT: The monster suit is rather impressive for a low budget production like this.
Make or Break: Every time there was a office scene the background sound track included a nonstop ringing phone. At times it got on my nerves to the point I did yell out "Answer the fucking phone already."
Score: 5.9 out of 10