Api assassine

I remember from my youth watching a film on Svengoolie (for those unaware, it's a Chicago-based horror, TV program that airs cheesy and low budget films from back in the day) called The Swarm, but it was reissued as Attack of the Killer Bees. Not having seen it in so many years, I can't remember a lot of it off the top of my head. I remember it having a creepy and eerie presence to it, but that's about it.

Why do I bring this up? Because killer insect films have always fascinated me, while at the same time legitimately making me uncomfortable. I hate bees, wasps, snakes, and many other insects - but to have them become the main enemy in horror films is actually a very creative and smart thing. Unlike your monsters like Jason, Freddy, and Myers - mine's real.

Sadly, from the looks of it, I'm not sure there are very many, if any, good killer bee films, and the simply-titled mess Killer Bees doesn't reassure the genre in any way. It's purely a made-for-TV-film, and that's it. It has the production budget of what appears to be a television pilot, and it accomplishes even less than one could imagine. Even the opening sequence feels like one of those odd, unknown CBS TV miniseries's.

The story is about a sheriff (Howell) who has to protect the town when a swarm of killer bees is freed. The bees are freed because of town drunk crashing his car into a bee-truck, and knocking over a box filled with them. The rest of the film is mindless, contrived, predictable, and an utter waste of potential.

Right off the bat, just from the style of filming, one can tell that not a huge budget was put to use here. I recall a shot where you see a man driving, and on the side of his car you can see he is approaching a parking lot or a driveway. The next shot is in the car and you can clearly see out the window which is now looking at a vast, empty, lifeless field of grass and weeds. I believe the same truck is carrying a group of trouble-making teenagers later in the film after the owner of it dies.

Killer Bees still succeeds in making your skin crawl at the thought of hundreds of little, pesky, stinging bugs on your skin at one time, but the shock value alone doesn't sustain a movie that hopes to be good. It's a TV film, but that doesn't give it any right to be bad and carefree. If variety, continuity, acting, and effects had all been things the film-makers payed a bit more attention to, this could easily go from pretty bad to horrible.

Starring: C. Thomas Howell. Directed by: Penelope Buitenhuis.

According to this hilariously awful disaster movie, a swarm of African killer bees looks like a bunch of chocolates doing a Mexican wave. At least, that's what Sheriff Lyndon Harris finds when he spots a truck full of the insects crash. He must try to warn the people of his town before a Honey Festival (a really lame excuse to attract the bees) takes place.

Even the '70s thriller 'The Swarm' had better special effects than this, probably because the makers didn't automatically switch to a digital solution every time a stunt was involved.

All in all, the acting is terrible, the plot is awful and the best special effect in the whole movie is the farmer's decomposing body after he swallows a bee in his beer.

My Take: Made-for-TV yawner.

I watched 'Killer Bees" when I was on a school camping. We were to choose from two activities, go for the bravery test or watch this movie. Well, I was very tired at that time (it was really late at that time), so I decided to watch the movie instead. What the heck happened, I even got sleepier. "Killer Bees" is boring TV movie fare. No excitement, no suspense even no sense. The story sucks, the effects are fake and...well you get my point.

The lead isn't even much of a hero, because of his terrible acting. The bees aren't even scary,for two reasons. One, the effects are fake, I mean really fake. Two, there is no suspense, no theme music to underscore the bees' presence and nothing even scary about them, the bees look just like a couple of floating black dots attacking people. It wasn't only boring, it's also stupid.

It bored us, and it doesn't even get a little bit interesting. It's not one of those B-films that are "so bad, it's good". No, this one's "so bad, its awful.".

I tell you, if ever you watch this on a camping trip, choose the bravery test or any camp activity over this, no matter how tired you are, to keep your spirit up.

TV movie rating: 0 out of 5.

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.

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.