Essaim mortel

I remember from my youth watching a film on Svengoolie (for those unaware, it's a Chicago-based horror, TV program that airs cheesy and low budget films from back in the day) called The Swarm, but it was reissued as Attack of the Killer Bees. Not having seen it in so many years, I can't remember a lot of it off the top of my head. I remember it having a creepy and eerie presence to it, but that's about it.

Why do I bring this up? Because killer insect films have always fascinated me, while at the same time legitimately making me uncomfortable. I hate bees, wasps, snakes, and many other insects - but to have them become the main enemy in horror films is actually a very creative and smart thing. Unlike your monsters like Jason, Freddy, and Myers - mine's real.

Sadly, from the looks of it, I'm not sure there are very many, if any, good killer bee films, and the simply-titled mess Killer Bees doesn't reassure the genre in any way. It's purely a made-for-TV-film, and that's it. It has the production budget of what appears to be a television pilot, and it accomplishes even less than one could imagine. Even the opening sequence feels like one of those odd, unknown CBS TV miniseries's.

The story is about a sheriff (Howell) who has to protect the town when a swarm of killer bees is freed. The bees are freed because of town drunk crashing his car into a bee-truck, and knocking over a box filled with them. The rest of the film is mindless, contrived, predictable, and an utter waste of potential.

Right off the bat, just from the style of filming, one can tell that not a huge budget was put to use here. I recall a shot where you see a man driving, and on the side of his car you can see he is approaching a parking lot or a driveway. The next shot is in the car and you can clearly see out the window which is now looking at a vast, empty, lifeless field of grass and weeds. I believe the same truck is carrying a group of trouble-making teenagers later in the film after the owner of it dies.

Killer Bees still succeeds in making your skin crawl at the thought of hundreds of little, pesky, stinging bugs on your skin at one time, but the shock value alone doesn't sustain a movie that hopes to be good. It's a TV film, but that doesn't give it any right to be bad and carefree. If variety, continuity, acting, and effects had all been things the film-makers payed a bit more attention to, this could easily go from pretty bad to horrible.

Starring: C. Thomas Howell. Directed by: Penelope Buitenhuis.

I will start with this is more of a 3.5-3.8 not a full 4. The effects are pretty bad more like 70s-80s b movie NOT 50s or 60s. The acting is also awful the kids actually almost save this flop. If you somehow like CT howell you may even enjoy this as he is the sheriff. The story is probably the best, about the quality you could expect from an average 6th grader. Even so I watched this and can say of the 1000s of horror/monster flicks this was not among the worst by any means. It is fairly clean for family watching, some sensuality and pg violence. Watch it on netflix or something it will be cheap and you could do a lot worse. Josh

Oh boy, C. Thomas Howell has sunk so low... He did "The Hitcher", for Pete's sake! Here, he's starring in this poor soap-opera quality vehicle as a sheriff whose town gets infected by a plague of poor CGI killer dots. No thrills, no action, cinematography that gets painfully awful at some times and a final shot (involving a swarm of more killer dots) portraying that this silly nightmare isn't over yet. Please make it stop. And since this was made for TV, you might get the idea...: No gore and nudity either. Only watch it in a case where you feel you could die of boredom. Otherwise, avoid it, or you might as well watch "Swarmed" (2005) instead. That one's at least a bit of fun, and stars Tim Thomerson, everybody's favorite B-movie actor. Thomerson will kick Howell's ass any day. I don't care if Howell took on Hauer in the 80's. He sure lost it now.

It wasn't until after watching this that I suddenly realised something - That movies featuring bees on the rampage are totally self limiting in concept and structure . I've seen several of these type of movies and they always play out like this : A figure of authority ( usually a doctor or law enforcement agent ) finds the body of someone who's died under unknown circumstances . The audience are always one step ahead of the authority figure so know fine well how the victim died ( Usually by a camera being thrown in their face or something resembling bees superimposed over the camera lens ) so in order for the plot to go somewhere the running time is taken up with the authority figure meeting a beautiful doctor/scientist/vet so we get a romantic subplot , then about 2/3rds of the way through the movie after the authority figure has consumated the relationship it's then he realises people have been getting killed by cameras being thrust in their face/ rather poor animation and then races to save the local population against superimposed bees

There you go , another by the numbers thriller with deadly bees . the important number here is two . As in two out of ten

My review of KILLER BEES!, a silly and no-budget TV movie from 2002, will go off on a tangent because of personal reasons. I found the tone of the script particularly offensive, particularly in the depiction of multiple sclerosis. I write as somebody married to an MS sufferer, and I can report that the MS portrayed in this film is even more ridiculous than the stuff involving the killer bees. The character doesn't act like somebody with MS in the slightest, the symptoms as described are wrong, and to top it all they describe MS as a 'terminal illness'. It's sloppy writing, and had me fuming.

Still, at least it enlivened what is otherwise an entirely forgettable movie. KILLER BEES! follows the same old hackneyed storyline with a single character (THE HITCHER'S C. Thomas Howell, looking old and tired) who recognises the impending threat while nobody else believes him. Inevitably, there's a big event coming up, and the greedy Mayor refuses to cancel it. What makes KILLER BEES! stand out is how poorly the action is staged, in addition to the terrible calibre of the special effects.

The PG rating is the final insult; if this had contained some proper gore effects a la PIRANHA 3D, I could have forgiven it for the rest of the problems. Instead, it plays it safe throughout, and the shots of bees are limited to just a few CGI clouds in the skies. It's nonsense and the cast of badly-acting townsfolk hardly serve to increase the entertainment value. In a world of bad films, KILLER BEES! is the worst bee B-movie yet.