Les abeilles

"The Bees" is a gloriously awful animal attack thriller marked by some truly incompetent filmmaking, a ridiculous script, and some hilariously insipid acting. The story involves the corporate smuggling of killer bees into America, which causes a massive swarm such as the country has never seen. The scientists desperately trying to solve the problem (John Saxon as the egghead hero, the ravishing Angel Tompkins as his love interest, John Carradine as her German accented father) realize that they're going to have their hands full.

Led by director Alfredo Zacharias ("Demonoid"), the filmmakers here miss any horror in the premise by bungling almost every action scene. Most of the time, the only possible reaction to the goings-on is laughter. Granted, some of the humor *is* intentional - there is an occasional priceless line such as "That's adding incest to injury." When it comes to the insect cast, we have a practical cast of thousands, and regarding the human actors, Saxon gamely tries to look serious, and Carradine is as genial as he's ever been. Mexican icon Claudio Brook appears early on as Tompkins' husband. There's even an appearance by the "President"! Highlights include a good ol' boy hiring kids to procure bees for him so he can treat his rheumatism with bee stings. There's a fair bit of violence and a couple of impressive vehicle crashes. Everything is capped off with a delightfully idiotic music score (composed by Richard Gillis) that completely works against any suspense that Zacharias and company might otherwise have created. The ending is priceless and right in tune with so many other ecologically themed thrillers of the 70s.

Warner Bros., the makers of "The Swarm", went so far as to pay off New World, the American distributors of this flick, to delay their release so the two movies wouldn't be in direct competition.

Five out of 10.

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.

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.

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!