Customer Reviews

The Deadly Bees

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Here's an obscure film that has finally made it's way to DVD. One of the better Killer Bee movies and it's wrapped in a nice little mystery to boot! The Bee effects run hot and cold, but still deliver that creepy crawly feeling. I remember this film from Saturday's afternoon horror fest when I was a wee lad! The film holds up and is as entertaining as I remembered it to be. The DVD transfer look very good, but the titles etc seemed a little fuzzy, nothing too distracting though. It would have been nice to have some extras, even a trailer! Too bad, but it makes a fun Halloween flick!

I'm sure many people don't realise that almost 10 years before such killer insect films as "Ants" and "The Swarm", crawled onto our big screens menacing all star casts and alternately horrifing and sometimes unintentionally amusing us, there had already been a film released back in 1967 that created those same sort of chills, admittedly on a more modest scale. This little effort, "The Deadly Bees" was produced by the famed Amicus production company in England who along with their British rivals the legendary Hammer Studios ruled the horror field through the 1960's and early 1970's. With the possible exception of Hitchcock's "The Birds" Amicus were probably the first production company to bring such a story to the screen before the genre really took off in popularity in the 1970s when "wildlife on the rampage" was the flavour of the moment in cinema offerings. Rarely seen and almost impossible to track down until this new DVD release "The Deadly Bees" is often critised and even disowned by those that made it which upon viewing the film I feel is a totally unfair judgement. Certainly the first rate DVD presentation of the film (despite the disappointing lack of extras) indicates that someone had enough of a belief in the film's entertainemnt value to bring it out of the vault where for too long it's been hidden away. I had long wanted to see this film and I was pleasantly surprised by it and felt it had much to offer horror fans such as myself. Despite the obvious horror element of the swarming killer bees of the title "The Deadly Bees" for me was more of an intriguing mystery aided by some very good performances given by the talented cast. Together with great camera work, atmospheric locations and ok special effects for the time it all combines to make "The Deadly Bees" a film well worth including in your Amicus productions horror collection.

"The Deadly Bees" based on the H. F. Heard novel "A Taste of Honey" was one of Amicus productions earliest efforts and was directed by veteran horror favourite Freddie Francis. It has finally made a most welcome debut on DVD courtesy of Legend Films and is sure to please all fans of the legendary "sister" production companies of Amicus and Hammer. It tells the story of a burnt out singer Vicki Robbins (Suzanna leigh) who on doctor's orders travels to an isolated island to rest. However once there she encounters nothing but trouble first from the quarreling couple (Guy Doleman, Catherine Finn) she lodges with and then from a seemingly friendly neigbour (Frank Findlay) who is not all he first appears to be. The strangeness of the situation increases after a number of horrific deaths occur from savage swarms of bees who seem to attack on command, but who is responsible? All comes to a fiery climax with Vicki fighting for her life as the real culprit behind this swarming terror is revealed. Perhaps not a terribly original premise but I felt Amicus put all their effort into playing up the mystery and perhaps keeping some of us guessing as to who or what was behind the attacking killer Bees. I personally really liked Suzanna Leigh in the lead and felt that with the obvious limitations of her character she created something interesting here as well as being most attractive. Ms. Leigh would also work for Hammer Studios during this period and appeared in their "The Lost Continent" and "Lust for A Vampire". Frank Finlay gives without a doubt the best performance in the picture as the seemingly mousey neighbour only interested in his bees who wouldn't harm a fly, or in this case a bee! It's also pleasing to see in "The Deadly Bees" my favourite Hammer character actor Michael Ripper given a role that is strongly a part of the proceedings from start to finish.

Legend Films have done this obscure film proud with a beautiful DVD release. The film seems to have been superbly restored with vivid rich colour and very good sound especially during the bee attack scenes. Shown in its correct widescreen the only negative on this DVD is the lack of any extras. We have scene selection and that is it. It would have been good to have had Suzanna Leigh do a commentary like she did on the DVD release of "Lust For A Vampire" however I guess we can't complain as the film looks superb and is up to the standard of previous better known Amicus DVD releases such as "Asylum" and "And Now The Screaming Starts". Despite the early special effects the bee attacks still pack a real punch and are sure to still please horror fans now so used to CGI effects. Sit back and enjoy beautiful Suzanna Leigh battling savage killer bees in Legend Films most welcome release of 1967s little seen "The Deadly Bees".

THE DEADLY BEES is a quiet find, a small, low-budget British offering that I first saw in a drive-in with another film in the States. I am now in China, as readers of my other reviews know. I ordered this film at the same time I ordered and watched two other insect films: THE NAKED JUNGLE and PHASE IV. Both of those are about ants -- one film over ten years older than THE DEADLY BEES; the other tens years newer.

I heard the story "Leiningen and the Ants" on Mystery Radio, which I can access here in China. I listened to the under-rated WIlliam Conrad play the part of Leiningen in the radio drama, and it made me interested in see the film that I remembered seeing in my father's small-town movie theatre as a boy. In the film, Charlton Heston plays Leiningen, and WIlliam Conrad plays the lesser part of a South American official. Heston does an admirable job in the role of a tough, self-made man who boasts (maybe too often) about carving his own empire out of the jungle. Some of you may know that William Conrad played Matt Dillion in the radio version of GUNSMOKE. His distinctive voice gave a virile presence to the role of the frontier marshall, much more than the wooden James Arness did for the popular, long-running TV series in the States. Most of you undoubtedly know that Conrad went on to play a tough, but overweight, cop on a TV series, the name of which escapes me at the moment. He also directed suspense films such as TWO ON A GUILLOTINE.

PHASE IV is a science-fiction thriller which features awe-inspiring microscopic photography of the world of ants. Why Saul Bass only directed one film is beyond me, because this little paranoid apocalyptic story is certainly worthy of being added to the pantheon of end-of-the-world productions and is certainly superior to the film 2012.

All three of the above-mentioned films are excellent productions in their own right. However, unlike the 1950s adventure with Heston and the 1970s sci-fi film featuring tiny but intelligent ants (when they work together, that is) , THE DEADLY BEES (Amicus) is a mystery thriller. The killer bees are being used as murderous weapons in this film -- the question is. . . by whom? At first, the pop singer, played by the lovely Suzanne Leigh (who later played a different type of character in the superior Hammer adventure THE LOST CONTINENT (my review of this is elsewhere on Amazon), believes that one character is the villain. The early scenes are carefully arranged to give her this suspicion. She is led to believe, with the help of mousy beekeeper Frank Finlay, that the surly, brooding, often angry Guy Doleman character is the cause of the deaths in the plot.

Doleman, in this film, is his own worst enemy, because his easily-annoyed personality and gruff voice set him up as the villain, particularly when his over-bearing wife is killed. He only seems to have a quiet appreciation for others when he addresses the pub keeper's daughter who has come to help his useless wife on the farm when Leigh is sent there to recover from exhaustion. The pub-keeper is played by one of my favorite British actors who plays so many minor -- but important -- roles in Hammer films: Michael Ripper. Even Ripper's character suspects the Doleman character because the carefully contrived evidence points him, as well as Leigh, in that direction.

In the end, we discover that all has not been what it seems, particularly when early scenes are revisited, but manipulated to show what really happened -- sort of the way Downy Jr. and Law reconstruct the evidence to point out what has really happened in the recent film SHERLOCK HOLMES. The special effects of the killer bees swarming to attack humans and a dog may not be particularly effective -- certainly nothing to compare with the close-ups for the activities of the intelligent ants in PHASE IV-- but the reconstruction of the story in order to retell it from a different perspective is certainly well-done.

Even though I am a Yank -- now an ex-pat -- I have always had a fondness for British films, particularly the Hammer horror films (many reviewed elsewhere), and I have always liked the actor Guy Doleman, better know as Harry Palmer's boss Colonel Ross in THE IPCRESS FILE, FUNERAL IN BERLIN, and THE BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN. He and Michael Caine play off each other quite well -- the no-nonsense Ross and the crafty, conniving Palmer. Doleman also has a brief role in THUNDERBALL as a villain who dared try to disable the indestructible James Bond. Too bad he is dispatched early in the film with a missile from a motorcycle. Of well, he is still around to give Palmer fits later. Maybe he appeared in many British productions, but I saw nothing of him in other films that made it to the States until THE DEADLY BEES. In this film, he seems uncomfortably out of place as a husband of an unattractive, bitchy woman who owns the farm where he keeps his bees. He seems more at home in a gentleman's club in London -- particularly in THE IPCRESS FILE where he exchanges low-key banter with Nigel Green. Nevertheless, his surly manner in THE DEADLY BEES keeps him at the center of suspicion as the killer.

THE DEADLY BEES is certainly worth seeing if, like me, you enjoy low-budget British thrillers. it is also worth seeing for Guy Doleman's moody performance. As for Suzanne Leigh -- she is always worth seeing, whether in a Hammer vampire film like LUST FOR A VAMPIRE where she barely snatches the hero away from the clutches of the beautiful female vampire Carmilla, in the Bulldog Drummond detective thriller DEADLIER THAN THE MALE, or as the sex-starved vixen in THE LOST CONTINENT. With Leigh and Doleman and Ripper, how can you go wrong? Only if you are looking for cutting-edge special effects instead of a tight little thriller,

Best Buy DOES have this for 16.99, RECALLS ALL BS, especially on When Dinos Ruled Earth. you can also get this directly from Legend films even if its not listed as a direct buy from them. This movie is camp at it's best. I liked The Swarm much better, but this is still a great movie. If you live in the tristate area, you might remember seeing this on channel 7's 4:30 movie right before the 6 O'Clock Eyewitness News with Roger Grimsby and Bill Beutel

Classic killer insect disaster film...not worth 20.00 plus dollars.
This dvd will be available from Amazon much cheaper than what these sellers are selling for in the Marketplace.