Essaim mortel

I will start with this is more of a 3.5-3.8 not a full 4. The effects are pretty bad more like 70s-80s b movie NOT 50s or 60s. The acting is also awful the kids actually almost save this flop. If you somehow like CT howell you may even enjoy this as he is the sheriff. The story is probably the best, about the quality you could expect from an average 6th grader. Even so I watched this and can say of the 1000s of horror/monster flicks this was not among the worst by any means. It is fairly clean for family watching, some sensuality and pg violence. Watch it on netflix or something it will be cheap and you could do a lot worse. Josh

Killer Bees isn't a great film at all, but it plods slowly along and tries its best. There are one or two mildly effective moments but most of it is just talking and with poor dialogue.

3/10: I don't want to give it too low a rating as it's not a disaster and raises itself above some other low budget films but it is still not very good at all

Oh boy, C. Thomas Howell has sunk so low... He did "The Hitcher", for Pete's sake! Here, he's starring in this poor soap-opera quality vehicle as a sheriff whose town gets infected by a plague of poor CGI killer dots. No thrills, no action, cinematography that gets painfully awful at some times and a final shot (involving a swarm of more killer dots) portraying that this silly nightmare isn't over yet. Please make it stop. And since this was made for TV, you might get the idea...: No gore and nudity either. Only watch it in a case where you feel you could die of boredom. Otherwise, avoid it, or you might as well watch "Swarmed" (2005) instead. That one's at least a bit of fun, and stars Tim Thomerson, everybody's favorite B-movie actor. Thomerson will kick Howell's ass any day. I don't care if Howell took on Hauer in the 80's. He sure lost it now.

My review of KILLER BEES!, a silly and no-budget TV movie from 2002, will go off on a tangent because of personal reasons. I found the tone of the script particularly offensive, particularly in the depiction of multiple sclerosis. I write as somebody married to an MS sufferer, and I can report that the MS portrayed in this film is even more ridiculous than the stuff involving the killer bees. The character doesn't act like somebody with MS in the slightest, the symptoms as described are wrong, and to top it all they describe MS as a 'terminal illness'. It's sloppy writing, and had me fuming.

Still, at least it enlivened what is otherwise an entirely forgettable movie. KILLER BEES! follows the same old hackneyed storyline with a single character (THE HITCHER'S C. Thomas Howell, looking old and tired) who recognises the impending threat while nobody else believes him. Inevitably, there's a big event coming up, and the greedy Mayor refuses to cancel it. What makes KILLER BEES! stand out is how poorly the action is staged, in addition to the terrible calibre of the special effects.

The PG rating is the final insult; if this had contained some proper gore effects a la PIRANHA 3D, I could have forgiven it for the rest of the problems. Instead, it plays it safe throughout, and the shots of bees are limited to just a few CGI clouds in the skies. It's nonsense and the cast of badly-acting townsfolk hardly serve to increase the entertainment value. In a world of bad films, KILLER BEES! is the worst bee B-movie yet.

Killer Bees is a stinging remake of Jaws even going as far as having a town mayor warning the sheriff not to frighten the locals.

C Thomas Howell is the sheriff in question and he has thing against bees as he saw his father die from an attack by a swarm of bees as a child.

After a truck driven by what seems like a drunk driver from South America is involved in an accident, a crate or two filled with South American killer bees are unleashed.

The Sheriff is suspicious as one or two bodies turn up dead with what looks like bee stings. He calls in a bee expert, she happens to have the hots for our sheriff. Fortunately although the sheriff is married with kids, he is available as it seems that he and his wife are not together any more.

Of course the nasty Mayor who spends his time buying up land from poor farmers will have none of these deadly bee tales. He is organising the Honey Festival and everyone is going to show up for that including the local media. I think the Mayor failed to tell the bees not to show up as that leads to the stinging finale.

There is no suspense here as initially a few stray people get attacked and killed before a member of the sheriff's family is under attack. The CGI bees are poor but the whole movie is still a lot better than an Asylum film made for the Sci-Fi channel.

Its corny, its predictable but its also cheesy fun.