The Wasp Woman

A 1950's Roger Corman original 'Wasp Woman' gets the 90's tv remake treatment courtesy of b-movie director Jim Wynorski. You might be interested in where this sci-fi / horror pic is going initially - kill thrills, T&A - but trust me when I say it goes off the rails in cheap fashion. It's never a good thing when special effects are meant to scare, but instead make you wanna laugh.

Janice Starlin (Jennifer Rubin) is a model who runs her own successful cosmetics company, but she's getting up there in age which has both her and investors worried. They go about looking for younger talent to represent the brand when Janice learns of a new experimental youth serum being invented by Dr. Zinthorp (Daniel J. Travanti) with the use of wasp hormones. She's told it has potentially dangerous side effects, but is desperate enough to be the first human test subject. At first, everything seems great and it does the job making her 10-15 years younger and then the side effects kicks in.

Rubin - a 90's b-movie regular - is joined by a stable of low budget actors particularly Maria Ford, Julie K. Smith, Antonia Dorian. These ladies are used to supplying nudity, but surprisingly only Ford get naked though Rubin has a sex scene with an obvious body double. Where things fall apart is when it comes time for - surprise, surprise - the main lady or a cat to actually transform into a wasp. In either case the results look ridiculous and not at all scary. Plus because they're working with a low budget, the death scenes only supply bad acting & stage blood in equal dose.

You never buy that Rubin is a woman in her 40's neither. The makeup isn't well done and kinda obvious, but telling you that is just beating a dead horse. 'Wasp Woman' is a flick you watch but aren't shocked when you find out the inevitable. I hoped it's silly premise would lead to a good time, but it didn't. Wynorski with another stinker on his resume that sports a typical bad ending.

Here's another pretty faithful redo of the 1960 Roger Corman camp classic. The story is still fun but I prefer the original. Jennifer Rubin (who knows she's in a B-movie, and acts accordingly) is Janice Starlin, owner and "the face" of Starlin Cosmetics. She's also approaching middle age and her job modeling her own product is threatened when company execs bring in sexy, blonde Caitlin (Maria Ford) to take her place. An experimental youth serum created using wasp hormones by Dr. Zinthrop (Daniel J. Travanti) is taken by Janice and restores her beauty, but there's a price to pay as she periodically transforms into a giant, murderous wasp (with cleavage!). This never aspires to be more than a cheesy exploitation movie and works in its own realm; if your apt to rent a movie called WASP WOMAN in the first place you shouldn't be too disappointed with this. Plus, whoever designed the wasp/monster costume has a terrific sense of humor. It's hilarious! Same goes for a memorable death scene featuring Gerrit Graham that the makers of the 1960 version wouldn't have even conceived filming! Corman served as executive producer.

An aging model/cosmetics executive (Jennifer Rubin) finds a way to reverse the aging process through an experimental wasp drug, but it has deadly consequences as she morphes from time to time into a giant man eating wasp.

Much better then you would expect remake of the original Roger Corman camp classic, though this remake is dead serious. It features a very appealing turn by Jennifer Rubin, and actually focuses more on characterization then cheap scares (even though it does have its share of them). However, the film does feature poor monster effects.

Rated R; Nudity, Violence, Sexual Situations, and Profanity.

The Wasp Woman (1995) was a made-for-cable version of the original 1960 classic B-movie. Well, this was made for pay cable but the film-makers didn't focus enough on the adult aspect of the story-line. Instead they tried to make a cheesy sci-fi/horror film with enough glad handing and back slapping to make this one unenjoyable. This remake was a lot better than the one made several years before, but it still is missing something. I mean you have a decent director Jim Wynorski and an attractive lead actress, plus the theme of the film. I don't know. Maybe I was hoping too much for an actual movie that delivers the goods.

Well, it was a decent made-for-cable-t.v. movie. But it could have been so much better. Believe me it could have. Who knows, maybe three times the charm!

Slightly recommended.

I saw this film because I like to watch monsters run around and eat people! And there's plenty of rubbersuit-monster stompin n' chompin n' slicin n' dicin! See her turn into a wasp in bed with a man! See her rip a rival model apart right in the photo room! See her morph in broad daylight! See a weird dream sequence that proves, once and for all, that too much sunlight CAN kill you! :) Frightfully silly, but that just adds to its cheese/fun factor. It's one of my favorite killer-bug movies!