October Horror Challenge 2017 #92: "The Bees (1978)"

I've wanted to see this movie since I was a kid. I feel the need to add that disclaimer in case it is terrible, so you know I've wanted to see it since before I knew any better. I wasn't allowed to watch horror movies when I was a kid, but I was allowed to read some horror novels (as long as they weren't written by Stephen King...my mom thought his books were worse than they were) so I had the novelization of the movie "The Swarm," and I was allergic to bees, so I was obsessed with the idea that bees could take over the world. I saw "The Swarm" a few years ago and it was terrible, but this movie has eluded me until now.

Like 'The Swarm," this movie is about a strain of killer beers who become super aggressive and start killing people. Unlike "The Swarm," this movie has a cool opening sequence showing how the bees were breed (a genetic researcher trying to figure out how to make the bees less aggressive) and a plot that makes sense: despite the danger, researchers still want to figure out how to breed the bees to be less aggressive, because they reproduce quickly and companies believe the bees will be able to provide more honey, which I'd in high demand, so they're willing to overlook the risks). This movie definitely put more effort into it's plot than "The Swarm," whose plot can be summarized as follows: bees bad...they kill.

Unfortunately, while the idea behind the plot is much better, the movie gets really boring after the opening sequence. About 20 minutes in it so, it starts to really drag along. There are some death scenes and some action scenes that try to spice things up, but there's too much long droning monotony in between these scenes to be of much help. I still think this movie is better than "The Swarm," though, because the idea behind the plot is so much better, and the acting is a lot better, too. "The Swarm" had a lot of famous actors in it, but they weren't given much to do and the dialogue was atrocious.

At least there's conflict wocen into the story in this movie. The researchers care about the bees and about the health of the planet, so they want to work to perfect the methods for calming the bees before the bees are unleashed on the world. The executives for the companies that want the honey just care about the money, so they don't care who has to die and they work to suppress the truth even as the outbreak gets worse and the bees start swarming major cities everywhere. Overall, while this movie isn't the greatest, I definitely enjoyed it more than"The Swarm." Now if you'll excuse me I have to spray my entire apartment with bee killer.