BY ROD BARNETT
The
horror sub-genre generally known as 'Nature Attacks' blossomed in the 1970s and
probably reached perfection with Jaws (1975). Certainly Jaws was not the first
movie to put humans at the mercy of a relentless animal antagonist but it's
success guaranteed that it would never be the last. Being very well respected
and most profitable film of its type there was little doubt that more such
movies would be made but while much fun can be had watching the various carbon
copies with monsters of all types, it's the nature attacks tales that stretch
outside the basic formula of Jaws that are the most interesting. That's not to
say that most of these films are good but they are usually fascinating viewing just
to see what threat from the animal kingdom can be blown up to epic proportions
to frighten the public. I'm sure the producers of The Bees (1978) had
Hitchcock's brilliant The Birds in mind as a template but that is a level of
competence that this film could never reach.
Somewhere
in South America a United Nations science outpost has Dr. Miller (Claudio
Brook) running some tests and experiments on African killer bees. Miller is
part of a team that is working to figure out a way to increase the production
of honey and their plan is to crossbreed African killer bees with less deadly
bees to create a new, less aggressive but highly industrious breed.
Unfortunately, the lure of top grade honey is too enticing for a local villager
who, along with his young son, sneaks into the killer bee compound at night.
The pair of would-be thieves disturb the bees, resulting in the son’s death and
the father's disfigurement. The nearby villagers blame the death on Dr. Miller
so they storm the research compound, releasing the bees and killing Dr. Miller.
Dr.
Miller’s wife Sandra (Angel Tompkins) smuggles some of the remaining bees
back to America and takes them to Dr. Sigmund Hummel (John Carradine) who also
happens to be her uncle. Siggy, as he is called, is the head man of this UN bee
project in the States and has been working in the field for years. With the assistance
of John Norman (John Saxon) and Sandra, Dr. Hummel tries to continue Dr.
Miller’s research. While their work progresses, a group of greedy American
businessmen try illegally importing some killer bees of their own into the
United States. Their plan goes horribly wrong and their courier is killed in
transit, thus releasing his bee stash into North America and off we go into
disaster film territory. The bees set up shop in a cave near a public park (!),
begin multiplying, building hives and occasionally stinging a person to death.
As
the bees become a bigger and more deadly problem threatening to destroy the
human race, the UN team begins to make some real progress and actually slow the
insects' advance for a while. But at that point the bees evolve into a species
smarter and more deadly than anyone could have imagined, leaving Dr. Norman,fighting
to find a way to communicate with the creatures to stave off the end of
humanity. I don't want to give away the completely mad ending so that the curious
can marvel at it's unusual solution to the problem. I'll just say that finale
is almost worth getting through the rest of the movie just to witness.
Let's
be clear about this now - The Bees is a terrible film. It's inept in a dozen
different ways with awful dialog, a ridiculous romance angle, ham-fisted
villainy and generally wretched acting. The only two actors that make it out of
this mess with their self-respect intact are Saxon and Carradine, even if that
venerable actor is saddled with a truly stupid German accent. I love John
Carradine and it was great to see him featured so prominently in a film this
late in his career. He’s good in his role but I did find myself constantly
distracted by the sight of his arthritic, crippled hands. I'm aware of Mr.
Carradine's arthritis problems later in life but this was the first time I've
seen a director choose not to hide this deformity onscreen. It drew my
attention repeatedly and made me wince whenever I saw him holding things or
picking up objects. Saxon is the only actor who seems to be rewriting his
dialog on the fly, which is to say that his lines sound the least stilted and juvenile
throughout. Saxon finds a way to seem naturalistic in his role even when he is
being asked to do some pretty dumb things and, as a plus, he gets to have a
gratuitous fist fight.
I
wish The Bees was a better movie. I really enjoy the nature attacks sub-genre and
the idea of swarms of malevolent insects engulfing people automatically gives
me the chills, so I'm a fair mark for the story being told here. But this film
is so poorly produced and badly written that it is impossible to ever take
anything seriously. I can get behind the film's basic message of dialing back
the harm we do to the environment before we damage something vital but the
entire affair just seems like an under budgeted amateur mess. Most of the time
it feels like a 1970s Saturday morning cartoon script that somehow got made
into a feature film. On the plus side I do have to give the director credit for
some creative use of (a lot) of stock footage to show the military's fight
against the invading bee horde. This footage is well integrated and the scenes
of the Rose Parade were very well done with a surprise appearance by President
Gerald Ford before the bees descend.
Just
one more note about the film that I can't ignore. The sort of jazzy score by Richard
Gillis is pretty bad and entirely inappropriate to the events it is used under.
It feels like music written for another story idea that got grafted onto this
film out of necessity. It is almost always out of place and distracting
especially after the seventh or eighth time the same few bars of music leap out
of the soundtrack to emphasize whatever is happening. The music might work in another movie but
here it's overused and its repetitive nature just grates on the viewer's
nerves.
Luckily
for fans of nature amok movies The Bees has been release on Blu-ray by the
fine folks at Vinegar Syndrome. The movie looks and sounds fantastic putting to
shame the poor quality transfers from video sources I've seen in the past. In
fact, I can't imagine a better looking presentation of the film and one might
even say the excellence in evidence here is better than the film deserves. The
only special features are the movie's trailer and a very nice ten minute interview
with the film’s director Alfredo Zacarias. Zacarias speaks with a lot of
passion about The Bees and it's clear he really felt he was doing
something important. I certainly don't think this is a good movie but I can appreciate
the work the director put into this project and hearing his story from his own
lips might have been the best part of this Blu-ray.
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