DeadlyBees

The Deadly Bees (1967)

The movie is set during the swinging 60s (which makes sense since that is when it was shot!) and opens with a popular female singer named Vicki Robbins. Poor Vicki has been worked to exhaustion by her aggressive manager and is ordered by her doctor to head to the country for a rest. Unfortunately he puts her up on an isolated island where a couple of rival beekeepers are experimenting with bees with unexpected results. One of them has discovered the “smell of fear” which allows him to direct his bees to attack people and has threatened the government that he will unleash them. When several attacks happen on the island it seems that he has made good on his threats. But which of the beekeepers is the villain behind all of the attacks? And more importantly will Vicki make it back to London for her recording session?

Okay I understand that this is a dumb movie. The story is goofy as hell and the so-called “twist” is apparent to anyone that is actually paying attention. And as hard as filmmakers have tried a swarm of bees aren’t really scary unless you are allergic to them. Any monster that can be defeated with a canvas suite is doomed to failure. But that all being said I really got a kick out of this movie. The secret is not to take the damn thing seriously, because if you do that then you’ll hate it. The cast does a decent job and plays the whole thing as a serious horror film, which makes it even better. While researching for this review I came upon some trivia that originally the beekeeper parts were going to be played by Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee, which would have been a real hoot. But as it is the leads are fine and Suzanna Leigh as Vicki looks really good in her underwear (which is critical to the role).

The effects look terrible, even by the standards of the late 60s. You have some terrible green screen work that doesn’t match the scale of the actors. This makes for some mighty big bugs flying around. There are also a few plastic bees that are pasted to their victims that look silly and again don’t match the green screen bees. Though I will give the movie credit for using real bees in several scenes where they actually sting people. Seeing real bees sting people up close (I’m sure they didn’t use the cast) was pretty freaky and had me cringing. But other than that the movie is very silly.

I don’t know if it is because I like Amicus studios or it is my love of cheesy monster movies but I enjoyed the hell out of this movie in spite of it’s obvious flaws. Sure the bees look fake and I was never really scared of them, but the same thing can be said of the rubber suited monster movies of the 50s and 60s, which I love. So if you are looking for a good time where you can just turn off the grey cells and kick back for a while then I recommend the Deadly Bees.

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer