That buzz you hear is The Swarm, disaster mogul Irwin Allen’s speculative epic about killer bees. As far as that subject goes, this one runs a distant second to 1991’s coming-of-age dramedy My Girl (Macaulay Culkin, nooooo!), but with Allen at the rare helm (he functioned not as director, but as producer for the influential The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure, practically birthing his own subgenre), this notorious turkey doesn’t disappoint in delivering all-star cheese.
A swirling mass of millions of African bees swoop down to sting a bunch of people to death. The insects first do some damage at a military base, then take down a few helicopters and disrupt a family picnic before moving on to more fertile ground, like a schoolyard busy with first-graders just itchin’ to get it.
Michael Caine (who later saw true disaster in Jaws: The Revenge) fronts as Brad Crane, the stuffy scientist who knows all about the stingers. His partner in the effort, (Katharine Ross, The Stepford Wives), mostly just sits there and looks gorgeous. And what a supporting cast: Richard Widmark, a wheelchair-bound Henry Fonda, Olivia de Havilland, a corpse-hugging Slim Pickens, Lee Grant, a pregnant Patty Duke Astin and big ol’ Ben Johnson. Of the celebrity deaths, I most enjoyed seeing Richard Chamberlain’s.
Caine and company throw everything at the bees in an attempt to appease their anger — firebombs, poison pellets, Fred MacMurray — but nothing quite works. Finally, something does, and only then do we get this incredible, full-screen, closing-credits disclaimer: “The African killer bee portrayed in this film bears absolutely no relationship to the industrious, hard-working American honey bee to which we are indebted for pollinating vital crops that feed our nation.”
So, wait: Was Allen was afraid of offending bees? —Rod Lott
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