Product Details

• Actors: Vic Perrin, Bob Johnson, Ben Wright, Robert Culp, Robert Duvall
• Format: Black & White, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• VHS Release Date: September 1, 1998
• Run Time: 51 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301977106
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #364,960 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Outer Limits: Zzzzzz [VHS]

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Honeybee My Baby!, March 26, 2002

By 

Bruce Rux (Aurora, CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Outer Limits: Zzzzzz [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Flawed, but good. Joanna Frank stands out - literally and figuratively, thanks to a set of enhancing falsies she still likes to joke about in interviews - as a Queen Bee turned human bee-ing by her hive, in an attempt to breed with man and overrun the earth with superior hybrid offspring. (Q: How did the bees manage that? A: What are you, some kind of troublemaker? They just did, okay?)

Philip Abbot is miscast as the object of Frank's sinister affections, but is exceptionally effective in the dramatic finale. Marsha Hunt is cattily effective as Abbot's wife, who doesn't like this hussy homewrecking newcomer one little bit. Frank is simply fabulous, a stunningly cheery, psychopathic femme fatale, who dispatches rivals to death one second and unfeelingly asks "Can we get married, now?" the next.

The camerawork and cinematography in this one are especially good. There's a "starburst" lighting effect reflecting from Frank's eyes to give her a more alien appearance - and her eyes are already pretty large and almond-shaped - and the frequent skulking-about scenes are dark and shadowy, with added good use of music.

It also has two excellent scenes in it: the finale, which is quite powerful for a number of reasons, not least of which is that you actually feel sorry for the Queen Bee even as you're glad to see the back of her, and the scene in which Hunt discovers Frank for what she is, which is chilling. Much of this episode works because Frank's character never comes off as evil, rather more alien to our psychology, and extremely, extremely dangerous. She is a strangely sympathetic monster.

Not OL's best, but definitely worth watching.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Joanna Frank is a honey, October 12, 2000

By 

Peter Shelley "petershelley" (Sydney, New South Wales Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Outer Limits: Zzzzzz [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The Official Companion tells us that this was written for the actress Joanna Frank whom Joseph Stephano had seen and wanted to fashion an episode around, because of her unusual look - with "those strange big-almond kind of eyes". This look is perfect for her to play a queen bee who has been transformed into human form by her superintelligent hive in order to mate and produce hybrid offspring. Since we are told that the queen bee can produce hundreds of fertilised eggs from one mating, the hive clearly has world domination as their agenda. One might wonder how it is that entomologist Phillip abbott happened to come across the very colony of bees with a plan, as the ones whom he uses with a computer translator to study the language of bees. But then that allows the queen to communicate with the bees and for us to understand the translation. Frank is always seen with her hair over her face, sometimes with only one eye visible, which is suggestive of both her other-worldliness and her sensuality. Director John Brahm gives Frank a wonderfully erotic and gothic close-up with bees in flight superimposed over her face, though the evening gown she is transformed into is odd, particularly the way it provides her with huge falsies. No wonder Abbott is slightly distracted and his wife (Marsha Hunt - who poses like a manniquin) is unnerved. Frank sets her colony onto Hunt to turn the triangle into a couple, but we are told it wasn't the stings that killed her! The Companion tells us that the original draft had Abbott falling in love with Frank, which is the reverse of the filmed version, which would seem a better treatment since as it is, the age difference between them effects the plausibility. And in spite of Conrad Hall giving Abbott twinkly eyes, his entomologist is not a candidate to fall in love with, or to be a stud. The ending too is a worry. The Companion tells us that there were 2 versions and even the one that remains is ambiguous. This episode is also noteworthy for being made when President Kennedy was assassinated. Perhaps this gives the image of Frank in the deceased Hunt's wedding veil an added irony.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GREAT, April 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Outer Limits: Zzzzzz [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Although this OUTER LIMITS episode plays out more like a "Twilight Zone", it is still classic .... The undertones are wonderful, and the sexy bee-girl alone makes ZZZZZZZ worth watching ... Really kitschy good stuff !