The Deadly Bees

The Deadly Bees would be much more aptly titled were it called The Deadly Bore. Made by the company Amicus (a half-hearted sixties rival to Hammer) and directed by the usually reliable Freddie Francis, this is a truly terrible film.

Suzanna Leigh looks pretty but acts badly as a pop star suffering from exhaustion. Her agent sends her to Seagull Island to recover, and she finds herself lodging at a strange, isolated little farm run by Guy Doleman and his unhappy wife. Doleman breeds bees, as does nearby resident Frank Finlay, and things start to go wrong when a mutant breed of killer bee begins to attack and kill people and animals on the island. Finlay persuades Leigh that the bees responsible have been bred by Doleman, and solicits her help in gathering evidence to have him arrested.

The special effects are pitiful. The bee attacks look so unconvincing that they provoke humour rather than terror. All right, so it's a limited budget 60s film, so the effects are hardly likely to be the best, but surely they could've done better than this! Furthermore, the characters make no sense whatsoever. For instance, some of the events going on simply don't seem to perturb Doleman in the slightest; Leigh reacts strangely much of the time; and Finlay's character seems to be a different person from one scene to the next. Even the "shock" twist at the end is telegraphed miles in advance. I won't reveal the solution here, but as you're watching this film the likelihood is that you'll figure out what's going on long before the heroine does!

A London pop star suffering exhaustion is sent to convalesce in the country-side where she encounters a toxic mix of deranged ambition and a hybridized strain of killer bees that threatens not only her fragile sanity, but also her life. Leigh is a relative lightweight amongst her accomplished co-stars, with Doleman as the no-nonsense farmer and Finlay as his eccentric neighbour jostling for position as the dominant bee keeper. It's a rather unusual premise on which to base a complex whodunit, but provides a surprisingly strong basis for the mystery to unfold. Doleman's strained relationship with his apparently invalided wife, and the curiosities of relationships in an isolated rural community serve as an intervening backdrop to the troubled Leigh and her increasing concern at the strange events she witnesses.

Veteran Hammer-horror director Francis has crafted an eerie little mystery, lacking none of the essential ingredients of a conventional mystery, with the notable exception of an impartial investigator. Most of the detective work is done by the protagonists, drip feeding the naive Leigh with twisted facts to conjure alibis and implicate the culprit. Francis does a fine job of concealing the mystery, carefully playing the doubt card, and tempering clues with red herrings and faux staging.

Opening to the groovy fusion of art-house pop culture, Leigh's character is framed as a victim of excesses in a progressive London scene (there's an implied drug addiction, but it's vague) and from there, the film juxtaposes to the opposite extreme - an ultra conservative, socially incestuous rural setting, a deep isolation both geographically and socially for the central character. It's an engaging tussle between old-fashioned values and an emerging modern liberalism.

Slated by critics, the film almost cheats itself with its bold title, because it's not ostensibly a movie of this genre. The bees are present as a vehicle only, and certainly they have comparably little to offer by way of shock value. But the intrigue that the many layers build, is compelling. Try it from a different angle and you may like what you find.

This is an intellectual version of a killer bee movie. Instead of focusing on bee sting makeup and civilization-ending massive explosions, this film focuses on plot and mystery. Yes, there is a bit of bee sting make up and a couple of small fires, but mystery rules this film. In my opinion, it is the best of all the bee movies.

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed by Freddie Francis; Produced by Max J. Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky, for Amicus Productions. Released by Paramount Pictures. Screenplay by Robert Bloch and Anthony Marriott, from Gerald Heard's novel; Photography by John Wilcox; Edited by Oswald Hafenrichter; Music by Wilfred Josephs. Starring: Suzannah Leigh, Guy Doleman, Katherine Finn, Frank Finlay, Michael Ripper, John Harvey, Katy Wild and Tim Barrett.

Bees several times their normal size, and with potent stingersterrorize the folks and whip up some suspense and excitement in this British B movie.

Deadly Bees, The (1967)

** (out of 4)

Robert Bloch wrote the screenplay to this film, which has a pop singer (Suzanna Leigh) going to get rest at a country home only to arrive as an outbreak of bee attacks start to happen. It appears that these aren't just any bees but instead specially trained by a psychotic beekeeper. Bloch is of course best known for his novel, which turned into Hitchcock's Psycho but he certainly missed the boat here. There's a big mystery wrapped around the film as to who is the beekeeper but it's very obviously from the opening ten minutes. I'm not sure if the screenplay was just bad or if Francis didn't like Block and decided to give away the secret early on. Either way, there's really not too much going for this film as the performances are all rather bland and that includes the lead Leigh. Not for a second did I buy her as a pop singer and the opening music is just torture on the ears. The screenplay introduces several characters and subplots but none of them every come out to anything. This Amicus production does benefit from some rather gruesome death scenes but the special effects don't hold up too well today.