Steve Pulaski
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.
Vomitron_G
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.
dsd1
This is so bad that I wasted so much free time on this bad special effects film.The bees are fake which don't look scary.Remakes are just not so good these days personally because special effects are what is ruining ferfectly good remakes. Special effects just destroy remakes. This is why Killer bees looks so bad for a remake.The Sheriff of a small town just goes around telling everyone that killer bees are coming and will get everyone.Even the Sheriff looks like an ass doing this. The bees are highly unscary.Also they are laughable for even me to watch.Flying in a swarm they look like little tiny dots. This looks so phony. Here this movie was just sad. If I WANTED something better I would have went for a stroll. Awful remake.
Theo Robertson
It wasn't until after watching this that I suddenly realised something - That movies featuring bees on the rampage are totally self limiting in concept and structure . I've seen several of these type of movies and they always play out like this : A figure of authority ( usually a doctor or law enforcement agent ) finds the body of someone who's died under unknown circumstances . The audience are always one step ahead of the authority figure so know fine well how the victim died ( Usually by a camera being thrown in their face or something resembling bees superimposed over the camera lens ) so in order for the plot to go somewhere the running time is taken up with the authority figure meeting a beautiful doctor/scientist/vet so we get a romantic subplot , then about 2/3rds of the way through the movie after the authority figure has consumated the relationship it's then he realises people have been getting killed by cameras being thrust in their face/ rather poor animation and then races to save the local population against superimposed bees There you go , another by the numbers thriller with deadly bees . the important number here is two . As in two out of ten
