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.

In this film, a town is attacked by deadly killer bees after a truck accident caused them to be released. So, it's up to the the town sheriff to convince everybody that they will have to leave before the bees attacked. Pretty nice action, especially the scene at the Honey Festival (how appropriate to name a festival that when everybody was about to be overwhelmed with killer bees). That scene is probably the most action-packed and suspense filled int he movie. But everything else felt like a bee stung. The acting was cheesy and lame, the special effects were unrealistic and the ending (spoiler ahead) was disappointing-rushed through and undramatic. Overall, a pretty predictable film, with no plot twists or character development.Grade D-

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

After watching "Killer Bees!" on television one night, I nearly decided to renounce modern technology altogether. The "bees" were just laughable as special effects go. Now, I understand that generating an effect that simulates the Brownian-like motion of a swarm is challenging, but the result here was very unnatural looking. The townspeople, in contrast, were very lifelike. Some of them almost seemed to be living, sentient beings. Amazing!I think it would have been a better show if we had never seen the bees. Maybe there could have been some pack of dogs roaming the town, picking out the sick and the weak. That's scary. This was just sad.