Royal Jelly

To say this is a high school production would be a great compliment. I'm honestly shocked that such a lousy film even got made. The story was incoherent, the acting was terrible, the cinematography was quite possibly the worst I've ever seen. I'd venture to guess that these are all students that made the film, because if they are professionals, they must be the lowest quality you could possibly find. I wish I could say that it was so bad that it was good, but I can't even say that. The special effects budget was probably $10. They literally put Halloween store plastic wings on the main character at the end. SMH.

Trying to get through school, a teen obsessed with bees grows distraught over living with her step-family and eventually is forced from home by a cruel prank to stay with a mysterious teacher she befriended one day, but the longer she stays there she comes to believe something deadly is happening to her.

This was a highly underwhelming and generally uninteresting effort. When this one works is due pretty much solely to the uneasy setup that had the potential to be somewhat interesting. The work done on the farmhouse that keeps her there, with the bizarre work involving the series of impressive double-entendre referencing what's really going on. As it twists around whether or not the intentions behind the abduction are true or what's really going on, the sense of unease and confusion here is quite enjoyable. While it also tends to rush through the action at the end, it's still somewhat enjoyable to watch play out as it does since there's finally some kinetic activity happening with these campy creatures that give this somewhat goofy enough of an atmosphere to be entertaining. There are a few big issues to be had with this one. The main factor with the film is the utterly dull and drab setup that manages to rely far more on uninteresting family drama than anything resembling a genre effort. Featuring a truly cliched disastrous home-life that borders on the unwatchable with the exploits of the teen step-daughter bullying her mercilessly, the step-mother doing everything in her power to encourage it while the dad is spinless to stand up against it despite his best intentions to protect her, this is mixed together with a barely-evolved bullying setup at school that pegs her as an outcast against her step-sister and her friends. This is all completely expected and not in the slightest interesting or chilling enough to matter. In addition to this setup, the film's second half is a series of weird and illogical decision-making that really dooms this one considerably. Their friendship together is underwritten and barely there, essentially being one meet-up following several failed encounters that border on psychotic, borderline-criminal stalking that never feels genuine or realistic. This in turn makes the retreat to her remote house in the country that seems to slowly evolve into her transforming into some kind of queen bee come off even odder, with the incident looking like a straight-up kidnapping that no one goes to check up on as she disappears in the middle of the night to live with a stranger at a remote house away from everyone else. It's incredibly sketchy and suspect which also ends up furthering the blandness as nothing happens here either. The last flaw here, which is quite bad but isn't nearly as detrimental as the other issues, is the films' wholly cheap and underwhelming effects work featured throughout. While the burn-marks are generally okay, they're the only features that look good here with the transformations being absolutely comical and hysterical funny more than anything, especially with the design as much as the prosthetics utilized. The vampire-like fangs are just absolutely ludicrous a concept since they're a feature not on the actual creature and look just as goofy as the half-human/half-bee hybrid that follows, which when all combined together with the other issues here really hamper the film overall.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Violence.

Do NOT be deceived by paid reviews. Stay away ! Bad acting, bad story, bad special effects. I was expecting an okay B-grade movie, but oh my god was I wrong.

I watch a lot of low-budget and no-budget movies, this sounded like it would be an interesting movie, and it is, but it seems a lot of people don't get what's going on, or think it's boring. A lot actually happens in this movie, but it is fairly underplayed. The beginning of the movie sets it up and explains exactly what is going on. I almost wish it went a little further in it's weirdness, and at the end it's very low-budget shows with some false teeth, the colors do not match the the actors teeth.....

This is a literal representation of a honey bee hive, on a human scale, if that doesn't appeal to you, you probably shouldn't watch it. It is actually a really interesting movie, and I think people are not giving it a fair shake.

If you can accept it's premise, I think there is a lot to enjoy, but it is a strange movie, one of the stranger ones I have seen recently, but I don't want to give too much away. It is a kind of dark fairytale/drama, and again, it may get confusing, but it is all explained at the very beginning, I recommend going back and watching the first few minutes. It moves slow, but pay attention and have some patience.

The main theme throughout the movie is a really haunting piano piece, it actually reminds me a bit of the "Nightmare on Elm Street Theme", sadly the rest of the music is hit or miss. The cinematography is generally good, except there are a little of dark shots towards the end where it is a bit hard to tell what is going on. The acting from the lead is good, and the rest of the cast is good enough, the worst actors, thankfully have very small parts. The sound mixing is thankfully, well-done, nothing is seriously out of balance.

It has a pretty classic fairlytale set-up, and I think it definitely keeps that feel throughout the movie, don't expect the plot to make real world sense, it isn't supposed to and it is meant to be surreal, so don't take things so literally. I think for what it aims to achieve, it has a fairly cohesive plot. If you accept its weird dark fairytale beehive premise you'll at least be entertained, if you don't, you will definitely not enjoy this movie.

Movie is terrible, doesn't deserve more than that, absolutely terrible.