Black Swarm

The widow Deputy Sheriff Jane Kozik (Sarah Allen) moves from Manhattan to Black Stone, New York, with her daughter Kelsey Kozik (Rebecca Windheim) expecting to find a safe place to live. On the next day, a homeless is found dead with stings in the tool shed of Jane's blind friend Beverly Rowe (Sheena Larkin) and the exterminator Devin Hall (Sebastien Roberts) and the entomologist Katherine Randell (Jayne Heitmeyer) are summoned to help in the investigation. Devin is Jane's brother-in-law and former boyfriend, and Jane still has a crush on him. Meanwhile, Kelsey befriends the scientist Eli Giles (Robert Englund), who has developed genetically modified wasps to the army as a weapon, and now he is trying to revert the process. When the wasps attack Black Stone, Jane, Devin and Eli team-up to attempt to destroy the swarm.

"Black Swarm" is a lame and corny mess, with a flawed story that is so absurd and ridiculous that I am ashamed to have spent my leisure time watching this crap. There are so many imbecile situations that do not worth spending time to write about it. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Black Swarm" ("Enxame Negro")

This film essentially begins with a relatively young widow by the name of "Jane Kozik" (Sarah Allen) returning to her old home town of Black Stone, New York, after being gone for almost 10 years. Also with her is her daughter "Kelsey Kozik" (Rebecca Windheim) who has never lived there but, having been raised in New York City, is somewhat curious what life in a small town is like. For her part, Jane has mixed feelings about returning but, since she works in law enforcement, feels that this is the best place for her. The scene then shifts to a man by the name of "Devin Hall" (Sebastian Roberts) who works as an exterminator in Black Stone and has recently been informed about a strange new type of wasp which has suddenly migrated into the town and has caused the death of at least one of its citizens. Although he is not overly alarmed at first, he soon begins to realize that this new wasp is much more dangerous than anything he has ever encountered before. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that, although this film certainly had potential, it soon became rather difficult to watch due to the number of unnecessary subplots all along the way. Perhaps if the director (David Winning) had focused more heavily on the wasp-riddled zombies--or possibly just the swarms of wasps attacking everyone--the film could have been salvaged. Unfortunately, this was not the case, and I have rated this movie accordingly. Below average.

I couldn't recommend renting this movie, unless it is a choice between this and some of the real garbage out there. It is definitely a formula science fiction movie, very predictable in every detail, about monster wasps.

I would hate to spoil the movie, but suffice to say, nothing will surprise you.

So why not a real low grade? First, there are enough likable characters. It suffers from some lame actresses, namely the police woman and the bad woman. One day, those who do the casting will realize that even men would rather see actresses than hourglass figures. We can go to the porn shop for hourglass figures, thank you. When we see a movie, we want a story that isn't slowed down by hams.

Part of it is some meager, lazy writing, however.

Still, the people in the movie have some appeal and credibility, which keeps you moderately interested in this routine plot. It helps, too, that there aren't a lot of video game special effects to confuse you. Instead, there is a logical, easy to follow story (at least easy to follow in comparison to most science fiction).

The twin brother character doesn't hold the movie back. It doesn't add a lot, but it falls into the mold of "unusual circumstance which isn't unusual since every circumstance has one or two unusual ingredients".

Probably Englund's best film, which is saying very little. Certainly one of his better roles. It isn't a great film by any means. I don't see it being considered a horrible movie, either.

I would expect this film to get 90% of the ratings from 3 to 7. Anything over and under would seem to be a vote for ulterior motives.

Since satellite and cable have brought so many choices of what we can tune into on the box, it is only to be expected that the calibre of the content may drop from time to time. That being said it has provided an excellent opportunity for low budget movies and TVs show to help hone the skills of prospective Speilbergs and Scorseses. With this in mind I will often tune in, with gleeful optimism to what, on the face of it may sound like a bad idea at the time it was conceived, to she a glimmer of something to look forward to in the future at least. This however had absolutely no redeeming features. It was so bad that I barely made it through 20 mins, so forgive me if this is not a complete review.

The effects were adequate, but not really anything that a 14 year old could muster with a home PC and the smallest modicum of imagination couldn't put together on a rainy afternoon, if he was bored enough. As for the acting. Well lets just say I shouldn't think any of the cast were awaiting the postman when the academy made their shortlist. But they cant really take the blame for the dialogue and the plot. Overall this was awful. If you are planning to watch this, please find a newly painted room to watch instead, magnolia would be best. I promise a better time than however long this embarrassment lasts.

If still don't know how it all turned out so, if you know, my deepest sympathy.

You have been warned.

A new breed of wasps, unidentifiable and unexplainable by petty exterminator and cop woman, are now going to kick some major booty! People are being stung and the ice-cream man doesn't seem to come to work sober anymore... something is going terribly wrong in Black Stone... a town... haunted with myths... a very very usual, safe town...

This is probably higher than moderate TV entertainment. Some people seem to forget this is a TV-movie, just Robert Englund alone is good enough reason to check it out, if not, and you are interested in swarms, check this one out while working or whatever, it's OK.