The Bees (1978)

A strain of killer bees smuggled into America by an evil and unscrupulous corporation threaten to destroy mankind. It's up to a small team of scientists to figure out a way to destroy them before it's too late.Writer/director Alfredo Zacharias treats the inane premise with sidesplitting misguided seriousness: The copious use of laughably obvious stock footage (look fast for a clip of former President Gerald Ford on a float at the Rose Bowl Parade!), ineptly staged attack scenes, shoddy (far from) special effects, an incredibly inane solution to the problem that involves turning male bees into homosexuals (yes, you read that correctly), and a surreal climax set at a UN meeting complete with a heavy-handed plea for tolerance between humans and bees (!) all add to this hilariously horrendous honey's considerable campy charm. John Saxon tries hard as the stalwart John Norman, Angel Tompkins looks mighty foxy and just barely manages to retain her dignity as the perky Sandra Miller, and John Carradine hams it up shameless as flaky old fudster Dr. Sigmund Hummel (Carradine's uproariously overdone and unconvincing German accent in particular serves as a key source of unintentional belly laughs). The funky-throbbing score by Richard Gillis hits the get-down groovy spot. An absolute cruddy hoot!

After a brief introduction, this movie begins with a scientist named "Dr. Franklin Miller" (Claudio Brook) and his wife, "Sandy Miller" (Angel Tompkins) working on a project in Brazil to transform African killer bees into a hybrid variety which are less aggressive. However, when a local boy is killed attempting to steal honey from one of the hives, the residents riot and subsequently kill Dr. Miller in the process. As a result, all of his work is temporarily halted. Not long afterward, realizing the destruction that swarms of these killer bees pose for the United States, another scientist named "Dr. Norman" (John Saxon) meets with Sandy Miller in New York and attempts to take up where his colleague had left off. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie I will just say that it began with an interesting premise. Unfortunately, what really hurt this movie overall was the incredibly idiotic ending which has to be seen to be believed. Likewise, some of the disaster scenes were downright laughable as well. That being said, had it not been for the presence of Angel Tompkins, I would have rated this movie even lower than I have—it's just that bad.

Bees, The (1978) * 1/2 (out of 4) It was expected that THE SWARM would be a major hit so this Mexican film was rushed into production to try and cash-in on the others success but when the Irwin Allen film turned out to be a disaster there wasn't any "demand" for a rip so THE BEES has fallen into never land and very few have been brave to dig it up. The "story" involves some African bees that are crossbred with some from Brazil and they turn out to be craving humans and animals. Soon the bees are killing people throughout Brazil and Mexico and soon find their way to America and it's up to three dedicated folks (John Saxon, Angel Tompkins, John Carradine) to destroy the killers. I guess I should add that the major break in killing the bees is to create a special serum that will turn the males into homosexuals and they'll end up attacking one another. I'm not kidding. With that added bit you can tell this sucker is from the 70s and what a poorly produced mess it is. The nature attack genre has given us killer sharks, snakes, whales, bears, frogs and countless other creatures but the bee hasn't been too friendly as quite often its films are very bad. That trend continues with this production, which is just a major joke and you have to feel sorry for the cast members. Thankfully the film is bad enough to where you might find yourself laughing and being entertained by the campiness. As with THE SWARM, the special effects here are just awful with the majority of the bees being "dots" on the screen or some type of item being blown around by a fan. Every once in a while the image of bees are plastered over the footage we're watching but for the most part there's not a bee to be seen. There are several sequences where we see one attack after another and this is where most people are going to get the laughs because the performances are beyond horrid. The funniest has to be one where a woman removes her glasses, wipes them and then puts them back on just in time to see what's getting ready to attack her. Check out the woman in the bathroom who gets stung and then goes into her "death scene", which is bad enough to where many viewers might die from laughter. There's not a single death scene that actually makes on feel for the character or builds up any suspense and that's not a good thing for a film like this. Saxon is clearly bored with the material as he sleepwalks through it but he's always fun to watch. Carradine really hams it up as he's quite often shouting for no reason but this over-the-top performance at least gives us something entertaining to see. Thankfully both Saxon and Carradine have quite a few scenes together so genre fans will at least get to see them. THE BEES isn't the worst movie on the subject but it might just be the dumbest. The political speech at the end is unbelievable and let's not even get started on the other political stuff that works itself into the story.

My 10/10 rating assumes that you're ready for some nice, corny, really dumb entertainment, because that's exactly what the lower-than-B-movie "The Bees" provides. Portraying killer bees getting loose and wreaking havoc, it's just plain laughable. If nothing else, the movie should show why John Saxon may be the greatest B-movie actor of the last 40 years. Of course, his co-star John Carradine - doing the lamest excuse for a German accent that I've ever heard - can't really lay claim to being Laurence Olivier either.Anyway, if the killer bees ever arrive, they ought to go after the people who financed this stinker. It's probably the best example of unintentionally funny.