Operation Todesstachel

If you would like to laugh at a truly silly, truly original, truly awful film, then this is the movie for you. I won't lie to you- it's terrible! If you're looking for an evening of suspense and drama go rent JAWS. If you're looking to see a Mexican farmer stung to death by several hundred special-effect bees while shouting for his honey, THE BEES is for you.

It stars the King of the B's himself, John Saxon, as some sort of scientist bee expert. Or something. He and a nearly-attractive blonde try to warn the world about the over-breeding of the killer bee, and the inevitable disasters to come. But those greedy fat cats have only one thing on their minds: Honey. I swear to you I laughed so hard while watching this movie that I choked. If you like B movies, you will love THE BEES!

This film is a film about wildlife striking back like in Kingdom of the Spiders, Day of the Animals or another bee film, The Swarm. This one, however, seems to play it out in the same fashion as those films and at other times seems to want to go in weird directions like in the ant invasion film Phase IV. Then there is the music that seems to think the film is a straight up comedy. Kids and adults being stung to death in a park, you get music that makes it sound like someone has just been hit in the face with a pie. Bees taking down military planes and helicopters, music sounds like the A-team has just eluded capture in hilarious fashion. The film also has a lot of dead space, where there are no bee attacks, but instead we get hitmen!

The film starts out with a father and son stealing honey, because when I want to eat that is what I go for. The kid dies so everyone attacks the place releasing the killer bees! A husband dies but his wife survives and she brings bees back to John Saxon and John Carradine. Meanwhile, somehow the bees have increased in number that they form a dark cloud and begin killing. Plans are devised as we see the bees attack, then no bees and finally super smart bees!

John Saxon and Carradine are good in this and make it more enjoyable than it should be considering the plot. The effects are pretty good, but at times it looks like the actor are being pelted with popcorn. Once again, the music is terrible as it seems as if it were lifted from a comedy caper film and it really undercuts the bee attacks.

So the film was entertaining enough to watch, but it is not good by any means. At times they try to make the film seem light-hearted, but the film starts with a boy being stung to death and ending up face down in a river. Stupid plots involving hitmen and a bit too much downtime after the initial batch of bees is defeated make this one feel totally uneven. Then you get a strange Phase IV type ending that worked for that film but is out of place here.

THE BEES opens with a huge hive of honeybees, busily buzzing away. The grim narrator tells us of our doom from these insidiously industrious insects, as they swarm and sting! Sting unwary victims in Mexico!

Sting! Sting! Sting!

It seems that these "devil bees" have been bred at a genetic research facility, headed up by Dr. Miller (Claudio Brook), who sports a thick, Marjoe Gortner-like helmet of hair that no bee could possibly penetrate.

Disaster strikes, resulting in a screaming, flailing frenzy!

Enter John Norman (John Saxon), who joins forces with Miller's widow in order to smuggle the bees into the US (!). In Mrs. Miller's cosmetic case (!!).

What could possibly go wrong?

Catastrophic nonsense erupts, as the bees become a cloud of death, stinging hapless extras in an orgy of venom-drenched slaughter!

This is yet another ridiculous entry in the "killer bees" sub-sub-genre, packed with gut-busting scenes of grown human beings swinging their arms around, and rolling on the ground like bee-covered logs! Highly entertaining, while reducing our brains to royal jelly.

BEST SCENE: The "bee parade", complete with an entire crowd under assault, hopping, jumping, and swatting to fend off the sinister swarm!

This movie is chock full of such sequences, combined with acting and dialogue that are terrible enough to make our eyes pop, and our eardrums evaporate!

Co-stars the inimitable John Carradine, who plays the same old so-and-so that he plays in all of his later movies. This time, adding a strange, impossible-to-discern, "foreign" accent. His death scene is a riot!

Watch this right now! It's a laugh-a-second classic...

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.

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.