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.

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.

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.

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.

Yikes!

I can't believe I watched the whole movie.

There are only 4 things wrong with this movie: 1) Acting- most of the characters sound like they are improvising, and not very well. There are weird outbursts that I think they thought would be funny - they are not.

2) the script and editing. No rational continuity to either. Out of sequence or too brief to make sense.

3) Special effects- weakly dubbed images and weird bee attacks that lead characters to jump through glass.

4) the music- most of the time it sounds like it is for a different movie, or just plain corny.

The last part of the movie just seems like random stuff thrown together.

How did John Saxon ever get mixed up in this ??

Finally John Carradine - I could live with his poor German accent but his arthritis in his hands and fingers makes me cringe for the poor guy.

Don't get stung by wasting your time with this movie.