The Bees

Wow. This must be the funniest bad film of modern times, a real 1970s counterpart of Ed Wood's earlier classics. It features some awful acting but the main cast is kind of cool: B-movie veterans John Saxon and John Carradine, with glamorous starlet Angel Tompkins who apparently failed her "Charlie's Angels" audition, so ended up in this.

There's familiar and anachronistic stock footage, cheap dummies impersonating characters jumping from heights, and some crazy overacted bee attack sequences.

Love that funky and totally inappropriate theme music too! See it with "Demonoid" for maximum laughs.

1978's "The Bees" was inspired by Irwin Allen's upcoming big budget bee effort "The Swarm," as well as director Alfredo Zacharias's gift from his son of a jar of honey, New World producer Roger Corman on board but not Jack Hill, whose many suggestions were ignored by Zacharias, shooting from January 30 for eventual release in November. Exploitation legend Angel Tompkins joins the always reliable John Saxon in keeping a commendably straight face during proceedings, the discovery of a more aggressive strain of African killer bees transported from Brazil to Mexico City, enabling a far swifter invasion of the US. As usual, thuggish profiteers and imbecilic thieves ignore all the warning signs, resulting in special effects just as disappointing as Allen's epic but on a much lower budget, an early exit for Claudio Brook, who kicked off his screen career opposite Lon Chaney in 1955's "Daniel Boone, Trail Blazer," with more international roles in "Samson in the Wax Museum" (Santo), "The Devil's Rain" (William Shatner), and "Licence to Kill" (Timothy Dalton). The only other cast member worth his salt is aging veteran John Carradine as Dr. Sigmund Hummel, noted bee expert and Angel's beloved 'Uncle Ziggy' (Hummel is actually the German word for beekeeper). To this end, the actor struggles to maintain a German accent that renders many lines unintelligible, but with over 15 screen time he enjoys one of his more sizable roles of this busy period. Director Zacharias would continue as a trend follower (a swarm of killer bee movies never made the insects the least bit scary) with 1981's "Demonoid," a curious addition to the 'disembodied hand' fad that kicked off with Michael Caine's "The Hand," Samantha Eggar and Stuart Whitman on hand for this one.

The idea of a low-budget quickie made to take advantage of publicity surrounding THE SWARM - of all movies! - will undoubtably sound irresistable to many trash fans. However, most of the movie is boring talk, without the campy sight of big-name stars making fools out of themselves or large-scale but silly special effects. And while it's shorter than the full-length cut of THE SWARM (which runs about 2 1/2 hours!), it feels *longer* due to a sluggish pace. Still, the movie has some mirthful moments, the best being the whole segment in the park with the old man and the little boys.

A swarm of bees create disaster.

Made to cash in on the soon to come Irwin Allen block buster - The Swarm (1978) - so much so that Swarm studio Warner Brothers paid the Bees studio big bucks to delay the screening so the two films would not clash.

The most memorable thing about The Swarm was the energetic Jerry Goldsmith score that pumped away every time the bees were seen. Such music is obviously missing in this other flick and it gives you some insight into just how important music is to film.

The Bees (1978) is filled with boring talk and boring acting.

John Saxon proved he does have talent with his guest appearances in The Six Million Dollar Man (1973), The Fantastic Journey (1977) and The Time Tunnel (1966) but, sadly, The Bees is another example of boring John.

This movie is poor.

O.K. heres the basic plot: we have been poisoning the air for so many years that nature has fought back by sending us KILLER BEES. Now if that doesn't grab you how about this: This film features a swarm of bees addressing the United Nations, as Angel Thompkin's screams "You have to listen! You have to listen (sic) what the bees are trying to tell you!" I really had fun watching this, but I am truly amazed at how bad it is. There are surprising continuity errors. (In one scene hit men shoot a man as he is sitting in a chair. In the next shot, it's a different older chair.) Many of the shot's of the bee swarms look like they are just clouds of smoke. However, Nightmare On Elm Street's John Saxon is in it, and Claudio Brooks gets hit in the head with a rock. All in all I highly recommend it.