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A Movie A Day: THE SWARM (1978) Oh, my God! Bees! Bees! Millions of bees!
Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with the newest October special horror run of A Movie A Day!
[For the entirety of October I will be showcasing one horror film each day. Every film is pulled from my DVD shelf, recorded on the home DVR or streamed via Instant Netflix and will be one I haven’t seen. Unlike my usual A Movie A Day or A Movie A Week columns there won’t necessarily be connectors between each film, but you’ll more than likely see patterns emerge day to day. At the end of each standard AMAD I’m going to include a recommendation of a genre film that is either one of my personal favorites or too good of a double feature with the AMAD title to pass up a mention.]
Even with all the talkbacker warnings I wasn’t prepared for just how bad THE SWARM was.
I mean, I love Irwin Allen disaster movies. The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno are huge fun spectacles, but The Swarm is a jumbled mess that’s about an hour too long. And so cheesy that I think my cholesterol went up while watching it.
Poor Michael Caine. He’s trying so so hard to make this movie work, giving it 110% with each and every take in each and every scene. Much like his laid back and likable performance as Hoagie in Jaws: The Revenge, he tries to save the turd he’s in, but there’s only so much you can do with a screaming dialogue scene where you’re trying to convince a General that honey bees are our friends.
In Caine’s autobiography (the great What’s It All About… read it if you haven’t, it’s amazing) he talks about taking this film because Allen was a friend and offered him the role as a favor. Caine had just moved with his family to LA to avoid the horrible UK tax rate that was taking 2/3rds of his income. After spending a ton of money on his place in LA he was in desperate need of work and Allen came through with the lead in his next epic disaster picture.
Caine’s not alone in trying to save the picture. Both Richard Chamberlain and Slim Pickens take it more seriously than it deserves. Pickens especially has a heart-wrenching scene of grief as the father of one of the boys stung to death that pops in for about 5 minutes before leaving for a better movie. Chamberlain delivers his ridiculous lines with real conviction, which tends to make them even funnier. For instance while touring a nuclear reactor in striking distance of the swarm of killer Africanized bees he delivers this gem: “In all your fail-safe techniques, is there a provision for an attack by killer bees?”
Henry Fonda can’t be judged badly either. He’s probably second only to Caine in trying to save this movie, even though he’s given some of the more ridiculous moments. It’s a tribute to both actors that they worked as hard as they did to pull this particular plane out of the downward spiral to certain death.
Richard Widmark plays the grumpy General forced to take orders from the civilian scientist that Caine plays and while he’s not bad there’s almost a visible sagging of the shoulders and audible sigh before most of his lines like he can see the ship sinking from day one.
And Katherine Ross delivers one of the most annoying and horrible performances in the history of disaster pictures… and I know she’s a good actress… she was in THE GRADUATE for Christs’ sake! It doesn’t seem like she gave up, but that she’s pushing the cheese on purpose, which doesn’t really work in this case. At least not for me.
With something like The Poseidon Adventure you have one large group of people gathered together each with their own moments that have a specific goal. Get from Point A to Point B.
In The Swarm there’s roughly the same amount of characters to get to know, but they are all in different places doing different things. There’s the boy whose parents were stung to death plotting his own revenge on the bees, a love triangle between Olivia de Havilland, Ben Johnson and Fred MacMurray happening off in the town and Chamberlain running across Texas gathering research.
Add on to that a mild threat that isn’t all that scary when put on film… that of a shifting cloud of killer bees… and the deck is stacked against this movie despite the talent in its corner fighting for it to work. A sinking ship, a building on fire… those are simple, real dangers that you can understand… but there’s only really one bee attack at the very beginning that is actually kinda creepy and that’s because you get a long, lingering shot of the two actors with thousands of bees crawling on them. I’d bet these guys were real deal bee handlers and given a couple of lines specifically for this shot.
The rest of the movie the bees are represented by what looks like chunky sawdust dumped in a fan and blown structures and people.
Final Thoughts: The DVD features the longer cut… god knows why… so that’s the one I had to watch. I get the feeling the theatrical cut would have been too long before the movie was released on laserdisc and then DVD at 2 ½ hours long. One thing I didn’t mention was the giant bee hallucination scenes experienced by the people who are stung, but survive… there’s one classic moment where Katherine Ross hears a knocking at her door, opens it and there’s a giant, badly composited bee on the other side. This is the kind of movie drinking games were invented for.
The natural instinct is to pair this movie with a favorite killer bug movie, but I’m honestly not all that well versed in killer insects. Argento’s PHENOMENA (aka CREEPERS) jumps to mind, but there’s a better movie to pair with this… nature gone amuck in a horrible way.
The Birds was my go-to Hitchcock movie of my childhood, the gateway drug to his better known and just plain better films like PSYCHO, NORTH BY NORTHWEST, VERTIGO and STRANGERS ON A TRAIN.
I grew up in the Bay Area of California, just some 40 minutes south of San Francisco, so this movie had a real impact on me. I recognized the area as my own surroundings, so when the birds started attacking poor little Tippi Hedren and the school children this movie really affected me.
Plus there’s just something about this Technicolor look that was magical to me growing up… movies like THE BIRDS and THE WIZARD OF OZ seemed otherworldly and fantastic to me, heightening reality to a point that it was almost dreamlike.
And this movie is scary all the movie because of it. If you don’t believe me, rewatch the scene where Hedren sits down to smoke a cigarette in front of a the empty monkey bars that begin to slowly fill with birds as the school children sing Wee Cooper of Fife in the background. It’s a master’s lesson in suspense, a visual version of Hitch’s own belief that the audience knowing a danger before the characters do heightens suspense.
There also seems to be a hopelessness to this movie that isn’t often found in Hitchcock’s work.
Against all that you get some good performances out of Hedren, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette and even young Veronica Cartwright who would later go on to fight an Alien in Ridley Scott’s film.
Hitchcock, though sheer filmmaking skill, executes this movie superbly. The Birds could have been just as cheesy and overcooked as The Swarm would be some 15 years later, but Hitchcock could outdirect Irwin Allen from his own bloody coffin.
Watch for his use of sound (the birds are fucking horrible, little evil monsters from hell if their screeches are to be believed), music, and pacing and you’ll see a master at work, even in a movie that most Hitch aficionados view as one of his lesser entries.
Here are the next week’s worth of AMAD titles:
Sunday, October 25th: THE FLESH AND THE FIENDS (1960)
Monday, October 26th: COUNT YORGA, VAMPIRE (1970)
Tuesday, October 27th: THE SADIST (1963)
Wednesday, October 28th: CHRISTMAS EVIL (1980)
Thursday, October 29th: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO AUNT ALICE? (1969)
Friday, October 30th: WHO SAW HER DIE? (1972)
Saturday, October 31st: CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1962)
We’re less than a week from the big day! October has flown by! I have a screening of The Fourth Kind to catch tonight, but come hell or high water I’ll have it watched and reviewed before I sleep.
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
Follow Me On Twitter
AMAD Halloween Spectacular 2009:
October 1st: Nothing But The Night (& The Wicker Man)
October 2nd: Beware! Children At Play (& The Devil Times Five)
October 3rd: Cameron’s Closet (& Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood)
October 4th: Afraid of the Dark (& The Lady In White)
October 5th: The Pit (& The Gate)
October 6th: Brain Damage (& Basket Case)
October 7th: Brain Dead (& Braindead, aka Dead Alive)
October 8th: Visiting Hours (& Dressed To Kill)
October 9th: Macabre (& The Beyond)
October 10th: Private Parts (& Eating Raoul)
October 11th: Road Games (& Duel)
October 12th: Dead End Drive-In (& Repo Man)
October 13th: Psychic Killer (& Alone In The Dark)
October 14th: The Body Snatcher (& Son of Frankenstein)
October 15th: The Leopard Man (& The Ghost and The Darkness)
October 16th: Wolfen (& Cujo)
October 17th: Madhouse (& Happy Birthday To Me)
October 18th: The House With The Laughing Windows (& Deep Red)
October 19th: The Spiral Staircase (& Eyes of a Stranger)
October 20th: Demon Seed (& Inside)
October 21st: Stagefright (& Phantom of the Paradise)
October 22nd: Dead of Night (’77) (& Twilight Zone: The Movie)
October 23rd: The Serpent’s Egg (& Don’t Look Now)
Click here for the full 215 movie run of A Movie A Day!
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I remember BEES!
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Is this the one where they kill the bees by dumping thousands of gallons of oil in the ocean and setting it on fire? It was like solving one crisis by creating a bigger crisis.
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I recently rented The Birds for my kids to watch. I was just like you Quint, I had very fond memories of getting the bejesus scared out of me by this film. But my kids just found it cheesy and kind of funny. I was disappointed that they didn't like it as much as I did. Oh guess I'll try Rear Window next.
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Perhaps the nearest to real emotion in this misbegotten mess ("The only way you'll stop me is to shoot me, and I'd thank you if you did.").
But no mention of Jerry Goldsmith's fantastic music? If anyone worked harder than him to put this film over, I'd like to hear about them. -
its like two different movies, at first it seems like a typical drama/romance story for practically a whole hour and then suddenly its about crazy birds. it wouldnt be so bad if the movie was 2 hours or more but by the time the bird stuff happens, its practically over. i always know i wont like old movies and yet i sometimes still sucker myself into thinking i might be wrong for once....and yet i never am. lol
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WTF is that supposed to mean, Hitchcock?
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"LESSER?"
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I never liked the film on television. But I had the chance to see it at a theater in Boston (Coolidge Corner, I think, near Brookline) in the 1980s. There's something really creepy about being in a big, dark theater with the sound of all those birds around you. It wasn't until then that I understood what Hitch was up to. The Birds is all about sound.
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it's not more fearsome than Frankenstein or more demonic than Dracula. It's more like something Hitch would have been - dramatic with horrific elements.
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Damn no edit feature!!!!
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You're obviously the best person on this site. You pump out articles WAY more often than Harry. And they're ALWAYS way better written and way better to read.
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I like these columns when they're about more obscure movies. When the classics are covered, you get meaningless sentences like this one:
"Hitchcock, though sheer filmmaking skill, executes this movie superbly."
Wow, nice. It's TOUGH to write about The Birds because so much has already been said, but boy does that not tell me anything. -
If you've seen "Eegah!" (wonderfully skewered by the MST3K crew) then you'll know that Arch Hall, Jr. is a celluloid pestilence not to be taken lightly! Make sure you have a trained medical professional standing by, should you be overcome by the wretchedness.
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I loved that movie, with the great Goldsmith score, multiple flamethrower on bee action, harmonic resonance blabber and the oil slick ending. When I was looking around for the VHS of this, back around 92, it was in the classic WB oversized cases that opened like a card. My dad was pissed becuase it said "adult drama" on the side of the box, thinking it was a porn flick but would later be pissed at me because it made me scared of bees.
Sure the terrible script, Ross' portrayal, unnecessary love triangle, and terrible miniature effects work ruin the film but there is good fun there to be had. The attack on Marysville with the school kids futile attempt to run inside, the burning of Houston, and Richard Widmark's final fight against the bees were memorable.
I believe the cuts were made prior to theatrical release because the Book has pictures of several scenes cut from the film. The VHS was at it's limit though, much heavier than most other tapes, with a full reel. -
well sort of...it was great to watch as a kid and then never to watch it again, reaosn being because the resonance it gives is enough...and plus there ARE killer bees in the desert Southwest, so seeing them takes me back. If i saw this movie again id probobly throw up at how lame it is...just one of those things thats best left to your childhood
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Is the Birds not held in the same glow as most of Hitch's work? I always thought it was up there in the rankings by most fans.It is the one that always upsets me. There's something about it that just makes me hate it. I could never put my finger on it; maybe its the non-resolution story, or the fact that the innocent get punished and the guilty tend to survive... I'm not saying it's a bad movie, it's quite strong all around, but man it irks me...which makes me respect it despite my dislike...grrr...
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Oh no, they're defending themselves somehow...!
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Do you have perhaps a bee in your bonnet?
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Oh you'll WHAT? Unleash the dogs? Or the bees? Or the dogs with bees in their mouths so when they bark they shoot bees at you?
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Oct 25, 2009 10:00:04 PM CDT
Ever notice how many classic Homer Simpson quotes...
by nasty in the pasty
...revolve around bees?
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Aside from the nursery rhyme the kids sing, and maybe some incidental background music, there's no music, no score. It's one of those legendary "if it ain't true, it ought to be" tales. Hitchcock originally wanted to release Psycho without a score, but Bernard Herrmann saw a cut and insisted that it needed a score, and he knew what kind of score it needed. Conversely, Hitch wanted a big ominous score for The Birds, but when Herrman saw a cut for that one, he told Hitch that the screech of The Birds was all the score he needed.
So if you're talking about that maddening schoolhouse ditty, then yes, Hitch used "Music" effectively in The Birds. But there ain't no "Duh duh DUH!" anywhere in the mofo. -
Wow, now I finally know the name of that awful, horrible, brain-piercing song that those snotty little brats chant over and over and over again. That's why those birds attacked Bodega Bay.
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Yeah, that is weird.
"Bees are on the what now?" -
Great, now I'll have that fucking schoolchildren song stuck in my head all day tomorrow.
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I've heard before that that the original ending (and maybe this was scripted but not filmed ,rather than filmed & cut)had them make it to San Francisco (or wherever they're headed in the current ending), and find it, too, overrun by birds. Would anyone know enough about this to say yay or nay? Thanks in advance.
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.. is worth my time. 70's eye candy fo sho! Oh and I see some Robert Quarry in your future. The YORGA movies are cool.
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and that I ought to see it. But somehow, I can never muster up the energy to actually watch The Birds. Yeah, yeah, so I'm a "fucktard" and I'm missing out. Still, I've never been the least bit interested in "killer animal" movies. They just don't interest me one bit, and I generally find the concept stupid. That, along with the fact that killer animals just aren't that scary when each of them only weighs about half a pound. Bees are another matter, of course, since they actually sting, and actually ARE scary as shit (seriously, fuck bees). But birds? Someone being attacked by a flock of killer crows? That's only a step up from being chased down by angry chickens. The very idea of these movies just makes me think to myself, "this is bullshit. I would kick those birds' asses." I mean, how long does it take to fuck up one crow? About one second? So as long as you cover your eyes and manage to last a full minute, you could kill sixty crows easily. It's sort of like Gremlins. Sure, the Gremlins are scary looking. And sure, they can fuck you up. But as soon as we saw the mom gruesomely slaughter 5 Gremlins in 2 minutes, while only sustaining a few scratches, the Gremlins just stopped being scary. But yeah, it's a classic and I know I need to watch it sometime. Still, it's people getting attacked by flocks of birds. My interest in that stuff is just very very low.
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It's a wonder that we don't see more killer bee movies. I've luckily never had to face bees, but giant paper wasps are sort of the dumbed down version of the bee. Whenever I have to remove a paper wasp nest from the vicinity of my home, I like to suit up in thick layers of winter clothing and pretend like I'm preparing to fight a horde of aliens or zombies or something. Then I smack the nest with a flyswatter. And when all of the wasps start coming at me, I jump and dive like I was fighting off orcs in Lord of the Rings. I hope no one has ever seen me doing this, because I'll bet I look pretty fucking stupid.
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As a child growing up in Houston, I was always amused with the "in the mountains outside Houston" part of this film.
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Now that's funny.
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Irwin Allen used to have journalists thrown out of press conferences if they brought up "The Swarm".
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Artistic insecurity at its finest, if that's true. You release a work of art, then people will either think it's shit, or they won't. If you retroactively AGREE that it's shit, then deal with it and move on. But I don't have much respect for "artists" who don't want people to talk about their failures. If you know it's a failure, then why did they fucking make the movie? And if you stand behind your work, then have some goddamn balls and defend it. And if you thought it was agood idea back then but later realize that it's shit, then don't pussy out and pretend like it didn't happen. Admit that it's shit and talk about how you understand WHY it's shit.
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Funny, I just rewatched it during the summer after picking it up on DVD. It's truly terrible but the heroic work put in by just about everyone involved makes for compelling if dire viewing. The highlight for me is Caine's awful and hilarious expository and "inspiring" speech. You can just see how mortified he is at the lines he has to spout but, goddammit, he's determined to SELL that bitch! Richard Widmark's Oh-God-I-Hate-My-Life performance is also hysterical.
Goldsmith's score is really good, though. -
...I second Quint's recommendation regarding Caine's autobiography. Truly a wonderful book.
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the cigarette is one of the best examples of the american tabasco industry paying famous actors of that era to promote their cigarette brands through their movies.That fact has been revealed officially last year,and we are talking about payments of 20000+ dollars just to smoke their cigarettes.
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I hope Nic Cage gets to do the inevitable remake of The Swarm. (And I actually like him in that Wicker Man remake, seriously.)
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I forgot to give proper respect to Jerry Goldsmith's score, which is indeed a bright spot in this film. He tries just as hard as Caine and Fonda to keep the movie afloat, but just can't do it by himself...
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giant,bloodthirsty bunnies killing people.here are some clips:
http://tinyurl.com/69cc3l -
...so bad it's good movies. As in good to never ever see again. This used to yearly on the BBC back in the 80s. I think every boy of my generation has seen this and it probably put 90% off every watching another SF movie again.
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As they were getting me ready for the operating theatre, broken femur, obliterated kidney and spleen, apparently all I could say, repeatedly, was that I was going to miss The Birds on TV.
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Dozens, HUNDREDS of birds pecking at your arms and eyes? Yeah, anyone could "kick the ass" of a single seagull or crow or sparrow, but being attacked by literally FLOCKS of them? You would get totally fucked up within a minute or less. Being attacked by hundreds or thousands of little animals is just as terrifying as being attacked by one big one. Honestly, if I were walking down the street, and suddenly a flock of sparrows or crows came swooping down off a telephone wire and started going for my eyes, I'd be so startled that I'd be pecked to shit before I even thought of defending myself.
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would be a good second feature to THE SWARM as PHASE 4 (1974) is the killer ant movie by Saul Bass and BUG (1975) the William Castle movie about mutant cockroaches that shoot fire out their butts. A ALLEN, BASS and CASTLE insect triple threat!
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I saw this movie when I was a kid. I loved this movie, but I was like ten or so. I haven't seen it since then. But yeah, Caine's bio and this review make me wonder if this movie is terrible and I'm just reliving childhood fantasies.
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Usually played as Saturday Afternoon Movies back in the early '80's. Terrible movie, and it was obvious the primary motivating factor for EVERYONE (Not just Caine) was the paycheck.
Couldn't figure out the lemon-party triangle with MacMurray, Johnson, and DeHavilland. Boring as heck, and the fakest train wreck in history.
Lordy, did I hate this movie. -
In 1974 the top-rate of UK income tax increased to 83%. This applied to incomes over £20,000 (which is roughly comparable to around 300K US today). All non-work income (i.e., all investment/dividends/capital gains etc.) above that level was taxed at 98%. Yee-haw.
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...since I read Caine's book but I seem to recall that one of the reasons he did the film was that he was such good friends with Irwin, who he described as a wonderful guy.
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Also king of movies that had a row of boxes on the bottom of the poster with pictures of all the has-been aging actors.
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Oct 26, 2009 8:45:49 AM CDT
This goes in My Micheal Caine Trilogy Of Crap
by nomoredirtyjokespleaseweareyanks
it goes hand in hand with Jaws 4: The Revenge and The HAND(where Caine was tormented by a dismembered hand). Now that movie was utter shit and I'm pretty sure it was either written or directed by Oliver Stone. Kudos Micheal....those films arn't worth their weight in shit.
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You should try either of these for films on a par with this - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076798/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076214/
I remember seeing both of these on TV as a kid - there was a scene in the Ants one I could never understand where they rolled up bits of A4 paper and stuck them in their mouths to breathe - apparently this stopped the ants getting into their mouths. This scene was closely followed by the person with the A4 paper in their mouth jumping out of a seventh floor window in to a swimming pool and, if I remember rightly, missing it completely. Terrible, terrible films. But definitely on a par with the swarm. I suppose after bees, ants and spiders they'd exhausted the "scary creatures" ideas. The Fly and Snakes on a Plane obviously notwithstanding. -
A terrible Italio/American production of a woeful Shaun Hutson Novel? It told the story of man-eating slugs whom managed a suprisingly large body count considering their speed, agility and squishiness.
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being run down by what appeared to be small chunks of licorice on a conveyor belt. Class.
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Somebody pointed this out... I don't think there's a score in this movie at all. Just birds screeching and "diegetic" music inside the world of the film. Hermann if I'm not mistaken is mostly credited for making the sounds of the birds themselves, which are mostly or entirely synthesized with electronics (an important footnote in the use of electronic sounds in film)
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Was one of the only movies I walked out on at a movie theatre. I asked for my money back and they wouldn't refund it, so I went to see THE LONGEST YARD for about the hundredth time. Want a bee film, try THE DEADLY BEES. Its terrible, but it has that Amicus English vibe going for it.
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It was actually about good movies.
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One of the better no-budget movies I've seen. I have no idea how I ever winded up watching it, though. Must have been one of those 3am and I can't sleep numbers.
Here are two more horror(ish) movies I recommend you add to the queue- not for AHMAD, I know it's too late for that, but just a list of things to watch- ¿Quién puede matar a un niño?(Who Can Kill a Child?), which I checked out after Vern reviewed it on AICN (http://www.aintitcool.com/node/33136); and a great TV movie on Charles Manson, Helter Skelter (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074621/). -
Oct 26, 2009 12:45:03 PM CDT
By the way, if you haven't already read What's It All About?
by seppukudkurosawa
I'd check out the Caine-read audiobook version.
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When I went onto my roof after noticing that my attic was leaking. A seagull had chosen that spot to make a nest, and I had no idea how batshit crazy birds get when they think you're fucking with their young. All the time I was trying to fix the roof, she made huge swooping dives at me, actually hitting me in the side of the cheek once.
I decided I could live with the leak for a few more days and got a professional to fix it instead. -
Probably too late to mention this. But aside from the bees showing up much more often, the effects of being attacked by them resonate much more. (Example: kids in a pool where a small part of the swarm landed for a drink... trying to come up for a breath without being attacked. Usually failing.)
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ie, those without a broomstick up their ass. I saw it when it was first released, I was 13 or so. For me and many other fans, it's as iconic as PSYCHO or JAWS in that to this day large flocks of birds on power lines and such still creep me out!
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Absolutely the nadir of Irwin Allen's career.
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...for the days when big disaster movies had those full-page newspaper ads, with the little rows of square photos at the bottom, featuring all the "stars"... It really is amazing how many major talents, like my boy Michael, have silly disaster movies on their resumes. Jack Lemmon in "Airport '77" is one of my favorites...
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I reviewed Who Can Kill A Child as one of my recommendation titles last year. http://tinyurl.com/6ozoky
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loved this movie as a kid. Because of this review I'm afraid to go back and rewatch it and spoil my nostalgic feelings towards it. That's already happened to me regarding speed racer and I refuse to go through that again.
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Oct 26, 2009 5:35:35 PM CDT
Mike Caine's a working class actor. Pay him and he's in your mov
by onin solstice
He's made horrid movies, but he's always giving it all he's got. He's from the blue collar world that says if someone's nice enought to hire you, you have to give it all you got. No matter what they have you do. So I cut him slack for his past roles. But nowaday's he's in classy shit.
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My mom defined my love for movies. Taking me to gems like Jaws and The Exorcist when I was far too young. I think she found real joy in scaring the shit out of me. But the big pile of dung that was The Swarm was one of my faves. I grew up in Houston and the news was always about those Killer Bees. Jaws kept me out of the water, The Exorcist made me love baby Jesus, and The Swarm ensured that I was never afraid to play outside again.
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Shatner's "Kingdom of the Spiders", which is about to get the 2-disc treatment feat.
•All new interview with William Shatner
•Audio commentary by director John Bud Cardos, producer Igor Kantor, spider wrangler Jim Brockett, and cinematographer John Morrill, moderated by Scott Spiegel and Lee Christian
•Jim Brockett: Spider Wrangler featurette
•Rare behind-the-scenes footage
•Poster gallery
•Original theatrical trailer -
It was the other movie that immediately came to mind. Sittin at the drive in w my parents freakin out...lol. Town all covered in spider web. Perfect.
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...gets me every time. Even tho' it's only a bad matte. And was there ever a better name than "Rack Hansen"?
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sorry..Frogs was some good campy lameness..
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"Now YOU gonna be the worm-face!"
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SAVE YOURSELF!!!
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They might scratch me up a bit, sure. But think about it. For them to even stand a chance they'd have to be all over me. They can't come at me one at a time, or else I could whoop their asses all day long. They've got to get in REALLY close. And at that point, I figure I could grab an armful and then bellyflop on top of them. And I'd probably take out about 6 or so of them all at once. You wouldn't even have to aim. Swing a baseball bat wildly. Even if you've got your eyes closed, you'd probably take out about 3 or 4 of them.
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Oct 27, 2009 10:21:42 AM CDT
Sly, Arnold and Bruce in a church can kick the bees' ass!!!
by mrmysteryguest
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Was that Hitchcock didn't explain a goddamn thing. No chemical accident, no environmental theories, nothing, to explain or rationalize why the birds were attacking. Or why they stopped. It really shows us: We are the universe's bitch, which is the greatest horror in that movie.
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... Is a pretty intense flick with a good performance by Hall Jr. Not what you would expect.
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I give it slack since it's an Irwin Allen flick. Lets face it, he was never known for deep films.
For all it's flaws I still love it. My biggest complaint is the lack of sting marks. The dead soldiers at the start look just dead, they should've been covered with inflamed wounds. The kind of stuff when you see it, it makes you cringe. A horrible way to die. In the film they find the bodies of the boy's parents, Crane makes 2 important statements which never get mentioned again.
One - he finds a plastic cup shredded. The bees have powerful mandibles, more than ordinary bees to cut up the cup. Add that to the missing welts; bodies covered with sting marks and appearing to have been run through a cheese grater. Yeah. As if thousands of mini piranha hit you. Even if the bees don't eat the flesh, it would be messy.
Two - the comment that the bees are using the bits of plastic to insulate their home, to conceal it. The topic kinda comes up again when they create a pellet for the bugs to consume, to kill them. They don't eat it, as if they know it's poison. That would've been cool. The idea of a hive mentality, intelligent/sentient insects. Never used.
Here's another grip, at the start they find the bodies in the bunker. There were no dead bees anywhere. Did the drones pick up the bodies of their fallen comrades?
How cool would it have been if half way through the film they realize they're dealing with a sentient? An organizing hive, keeping a step of ahead of Dr. Crane and his team. You know that would've rocked, especially for a movie made in 1978. -
To fully understand the genius of THE SWARM, is to be a child of the 70s. For a year and a half or more before its release in 1978... the nightly news was telling us of the killer bees coming. As a child. It was terrifying. SNL did they're spot on skits about it. But Irwin Allen's film, albeit ridiculously dated today, still gets me - just because I put myself in the mind set of the context in which I originally saw it. As a true scare flick that was pretty scary, to me, back then.
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- To Commemorate The 3D Release Of STAR WARS EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, George Lucas Wants You To Know...Greedo Shoots First!! -- 388 total posts 388 posts
- SPACE 2099!! -- 145 total posts 118 posts
- Quint travels to Barsoom and visits the John Carter set!!! -- 118 total posts 118 posts
- Friday Brings SWEEPS DAY NINE!! Gab Here About Tonight’s FRINGE!! Plus Einstein on TIM, Wiig On PORTLANDIA, MAHER, CLONE, GIFTED, GRIMM, SPARTACUS, SUPERNATURAL, GOLD RUSH And More!! -- 72 total posts 57 posts
- The Sensorties Revisit The Friday Docback (And Still Smell)!! DOCTOR WHO Story #7 Again, The Coming Of Season/Series 7, And More!! -- 56 total posts 56 posts
- Rest In Peace Bethesda’s Adam Adamowicz -- 53 total posts 53 posts
- Crom! Grant The Behind the Scenes Pics of the Day revenge! And if you do not listen, den to Hell witchu! -- 67 total posts 49 posts
- SEEKING A FRIEND FOR THE END OF THE WORLD is something I'm very anxious to see! -- 43 total posts 43 posts
- Capone found nothing mysterious or good about JOURNEY 2: THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND!!! -- 42 total posts 42 posts
- Ridley Scott's Next Will Be Cormac McCarthy's THE COUNSELOR! -- 40 total posts 40 posts