The Bees (1978)

 

 

This review is completely due to the fact that our buddy Cerpts over at   http://landofcerptsandhoney.blogspot.com/   gave us a copy of this film back in July.  Check his blog out too as he is also partaking of the Halloween festivities in The Countdown To Halloween Blog-A-Thon.  So anyway, The Bees is a nature goes haywire genre science fiction/horror type film that quite honestly should also be labeled a comedy as well.  I say this because there are so many times the movie made me laugh out loud either on purpose or by complete accident.  I'm not sure which it is but either way it was greatly appreciated.  

 

 

Now, on to the film The Bees.  John Saxon (the Patron Saint of 20th century horror films) and Angel Tompkins star as a couple of scientists who along with her Uncle Ziggy try to stop a hoard of genetically modified killer bees from causing the bee-pocalypzzz.  Tompkins is pretty impressive, that is if you like to see someone gleefully overreacting to just about every situation that occurs in the film.  She just seems so happy all the time and I didn't hate it.  Uncle Ziggy, by the way, is played by the legendary John Carradine.  Unfortunately for the patriarch of the Carradine family his rheumatoid arthritis was already pretty horrendous at this point but that didn't affect his acting ability.  Three words describe the job he does here and they are What A Pisser!      

 

 

 Nearly every scene he is in is comical.  There is one scene where Saxon and he is watching a tape of Tompkins doing some sort or experiment with the killer bees and she blows a kiss at the camera.  Uncle Ziggy makes sure to tell John Saxon that the kiss was meant for him not John.  Saxon is quick to point out that Ziggy just "added incest to injury".  Then there are the faces Carradine makes throughout the film which are priceless.  See the picture above for just an example of one of them.  He also meets with some world leaders and a jar containing a sampling of the killers bees breaks releasing them on the meeting.  One of the leaders (maybe the president of Israel, I dunno all hell had broken loose at this point) looks into the camera, makes an "Oh!" face like he has been stung, and grabs his butt as he begins to run out of the room.  Later, Ziggy tries to reason with one of the men responsible for smuggling the killer bees into the country.  The man basically "poo-poos" him away and as he leaves the mans office  he makes buzzing noises and grins ear to ear.  Man did I love this movie although it didn't do so well with the critics or at the box office for that matter.  Not sure if it was the lack of star power or if it was partly due to the fact that The Swarm was released just four months before The Bees was.  The Swarm, also about bee attacks, was loaded with star power.  I've never seen it so I cannot say for sure.  We have it here at The Man Hole on DVD somewhere so who knows perhaps we will see that one reviewed later in the month.  As it is The Horror Honey and I both enjoyed this one and we give it three and a half hives out of five.