User Reviews

A swarm of African killer bees attacks an Air Force base in Texas, then the small town of Marysville and later Houston. A team of scientists, leaded by the arrogant Dr. Bradford Crane (Michael Caine), tries to find an antidote and an effective way of destroying the lethal swarm against the military command advice, that wants to restrain the area.

"The Swarm" is one of the most absurd, long, boring and flawed story with awful characters that I have ever seen. The annoying Dr. Crane, for example, is arrogant, does not show any education or respect for the others, takes very bad decisions, and hangs around with the gorgeous Capt. Helena Anderson, performed by Katharine Ross, instead of being in the base where he is in charge of the whole operation. The silly teenager Paul is responsible for the death of more than two hundred persons and is patronized by Crane and without any further consequences but his moralist death. General Thalius Slater, performed by Richard Widmark, behaves like a puppet in the hands of Crane and has terrible lines. And the senior triangle of love? What is the point? The train wagons exploding and on fire is one of the most ridiculous scenes I have ever seen. How could they explode and burn? It was imperative that the nuclear power plant should not shutdown, therefore why Dr. Hubbard did not ask the operators to wear protective clothing while working in the plant? How can Dr. Walter Krim, the man in charge of finding an antidote of the sting, be the subject of his experiment? The final solution with the tune of the alarm sound attracting the bees to the ocean completes this shameful flick that wastes an excellent cast. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil):"O Enxame" ("The Swarm")

Awful, awful, awful "killer insect" film from Irwin Allen who hires names from the past just so that the potential of putting ass in seats, but that certainly didn't happen.

Overlong (this should have been 90 minutes tops), with subplots that should never have been added to begin with (geriatric love triangle between Suthun-voiced Olivia De Havilland, retired "master mechanic" Ben Johnson, and store clerk Fred MacMurray which ends with all of them dying in a train disaster! Patty Duke is pregnant and has her baby. County "water control" Slim Pickins crying over the body of his soldier son, getting access inside the military base after threatening to cut off the water! A little boy who watches his parents die, drives their car into the nearest town, sees a hallucination of a giant bee that Michael Caine successfully helps him free himself from, later returning with some boyhood friends to hurl Molotov cocktails at a tree containing the swarm!). Michael Caine just shows up at the military outpost and is provided carte blanche by the President of the United States much to military man, Richard Widmark's chagrin. He declares himself an entomologist, and his credentials are later confirmed. So Henry Fonda (the best bit of casting this film has going for it) and Richard Chamberlain (absolutely wasted) are brought in as important scientists to either find a cure for the bees or to kill them. Caine gets a love interest in Katherine Ross (a military doc), but they register zilch in chemistry. The movie spends plenty of time showing this black mass representing the swarm in the sky but this isn't the least bit scary. Slow motion attacks on people is more laughable in its presentation than convincing as a horror in motion. Allen loves to blow everything up or set it on fire. Houston in flames thanks to the moronic use of blow torches by men in white suits and helmets who seem to just aim at anything including their fellow man! Finally, it is discovered that the Africans (the term for the African bees!) are drawn to a type of alarm that sounded by the military installation attacked at the beginning of the film. Caine and Ross (of course), miraculously escape Houston unharmed despite everybody else bites the dust, and get back to the Texas base, working on a payload carrying horns sounding off the same alarm that drew the bees in the first place. Missiles drop and KABOOM! A nice fire cloud in the background as Caine and Rose hug each other tight. This is as terrible as most tell you. It is truly sad some good actors are attached to it, but disaster films often occupied old Hollywood veterans in key roles to draw audiences. In this film's case, people fortunately didn't waste their time watching this drivel. De Havilland with her Southern accent is rather humorous, and the old timers out to gain her hand are ditched like toilet paper after a trip to the bathroom which left wondering why on earth they were in this film at all besides their recognizable names in the cast. Widmark and Caine often scream at each other for no reason; all I could guess was there seem to be this need to pit military against scientists which might explain their unnecessary animosity. Jose Ferrer's casting left me baffled: Irwin Allen's cousin's brother's uncle could have played this throwaway part. Also given parts are Cameron Mitchell as a military sergeant who receives news from the Pentagon and transfers information back and forth to the Texas military base, Lee Grant (her role is meaningless) as a reporter who shows news reports of the Texas town disaster where 200 locals perish due to a killer bee attack, and Bradford Dillman as Widmark's second he orders around.

Overcrowded and yet absurdly plotted, The Swarm deserves its rotten reputation. Sadly this was MacMurray's final film…maybe after this disaster he felt the need to call it quits! Fonda using himself as a guinea pig with no one else in the lab while injecting himself with an experimental serum makes no sense! He injects himself with the venom and has trouble reaching the anti-toxin vial!

Adapted from a novel of the same name by Arthur Herzog, this science fiction monster horror film directed by Irwin Allen AKA the Master of Disaster, didn't have the buzz, it thought it should had been given when it was release in 1978. The film was a notorious box office bomb upon its release, barely making it two weeks in theaters. It's pretty clear, to say, with that fact, honey; that this 'Bee-list" horror movie wasn't Queen B, at all! Without spoiling the movie too much, I have to say, it was really nice to see, that they were able to find thousands & thousands of real life European honey bees, as shoes-in, for the dangerous real life, African honey bees swarm. It really gave the film, its look. I also love how the bees were manage for the most part of the film, throughout the film. It must had been a huge challenge for production to find several bee keepers who had bees that had their stingers off. I heard that about 800,000 bees were "de-stung" for the close-ups and medium shots filmed with human actors by incapacitating the insects in freezing temperatures. While, most of the 'de-stung', however, some of them, were somewhat missed; so they had to doctors with allergic medicine, just in case. I also love the production story of main actor, Michael Caine eating bee poop, after mistaking it for honey. It must had been very hilarious at the time. However, contrary to popular belief, regarding the bees. Most bees don't really sting, much people, unless they have to. If they do, the bees mostly likely will die as well. This science fact was really missing from the film. Another myth about Africanized bees, is that they're super aggressive. Unlike the over-the-top bees depicted in the film that seem to attack everything, from everywhere by roaming, the real-life African bees are local to the hive. The reason, why is because the banana-scented pheromone which give signals to other bees to attack would be, too weak, the farer, it gets from the main hive. Most bees can only go as far, as ¼ miles from their main source; unless, the bees feel like migrate as part of a seasonal response to lowered food supply or likely to "abscond" in response of deep stress. Seeing how the movie takes place in Texas, I really doubt, they will move as much, due to the extremely dry late summers & harsh winters that state has. In my opinion, the plot would actually have made a lot more sense had it involved wasps rather than bees. Still, seeing these deeply disturbed bees take out, passenger trains, helicopters, and nuclear power plants is bit too unrealistic and ludicrous for even me to take serious; despite how cool, it might seem. Another mistake, this movie made about the bees, is the venom. Africanized honeybee venom is not more painful or voluminous than normal honeybee venom. It wouldn't make you, hallucinate giant insects or any nonsense like that. The only way, to truly die from them, is to be deeply allergic to bees, or to be, total cover, by them. Not only is, the logic behind the science of the bee, seem to be kinda lacking in this film, but the logic by the supposedly on-screen scientist, as well. Dr. Bradford Crane (Michael Caine), is a total moron. Not only, does he repeatedly endangers countless lives in favor of the environment; but he gives in, to a lot of stupid idea that cause many people to die. By the way, setting the ocean on fire using oil is not environment friendly, Crane! I also hate the fact, that he waste time, trying to hook up with Dr. Helena Anderson (Katharine Ross), rather than saving people. Are we're supposed to cheer for him!? I'm not! Anyways, as much as I love Michael Caine as an actor. His character was too annoying. I don't blame Caine for this film failure. He did what he can. I blame, screenwriter Stirling Silliphant for the film direction. This movie has way too many side characters. Yes, it's nice to see certain celebs like Henry Fonda, José Ferrer, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland, Ben Johnson, Fred MacMurray, and Bradford Dillman in the film, but some of them, could had been cut. I hate the fact, that most of them, don't really push the plot, forward. When, they do, it doesn't make any sense, like how the teenager, Paul Durant (Christian Juttner) went back to the hive to taunt the bees, after seeing his parent die. Wasn't a minute ago, he was still hallucinating about giant insects attacking him!? It doesn't make sense. Anyways, the filmmakers really focus way too much on, the characters normal lives than the bee attack concept. Some good examples are the pregnancy angle and the love triangle; which goes nowhere. It's clear, by the writing, that most of them hardly have any pay-off. At least, 3 side characters as far as we know of, seem to just vanish from the movie without any explanation of their fates. What a disaster! This is not how you make a disaster movie with a big cast. I'm deeply disappointing on how lack-lusting, most of these supporting characters are. Another problem with the film is the length. The film is not well paced for a simple plot about killer bees. There was really no reason for this film to be, 116 minutes for the normal theater cut & 156 minutes for the extended DVD cut! That's way too long! The movie's effects are also not that good. Model trains and planes blowing up. Day for night shots & matte painting, make this film, somewhat dated. Even terms like calling the bees 'Africans' seem a bit awkward to watch. Overall: This killer bee invasion movie is not a great watch, but not too bad. It's just below standards

You don't think this is a good movie? How about this...Micheal Caine vs. a huge swarm of deadly African KILLER BEES! Yeah, you get the picture. It's that good! If you don't like the original version Alfie like me, this is exactly what you want. Imagine if Alfie had to deal with his relationship troubles while BATTLING KILLER BEES! A mighty 10 out of 10 from this Killer Bee movie buff...

A little note of trivia, Mr. Caine was eventually playing Austin Power's father. When you think about it, it's kind of creepy that years later he would be playing the father to the man who says "Oh, Bee-Have"...

THE SWARM is the first of Irwin Allen's big-budget disaster movie flops, not surprising really when you consider the premise: Earth itself threatened by a deadly swarm of mutant African killer bees! Yes, it's a thoroughly preposterous kind of set-up, yet if you're a fan of cheesy movies and disaster movies in particular, like me, then the whole thing is rather irresistable. Allen follows the template set by the likes of EARTHQUAKE with big action set-pieces interspersed with character relationship melodrama, although it's not quite as assured or well worked-out here. Still, an ensemble cast does well to sell the idea, with Michael Caine on top deadpan form and Richard Widmark continuing in his quest to appear in every 1970s film out there. Other fun cast members include Olivia de Havilland, Richard Chamberlain, and of course the great Henry Fonda who stars in perhaps the film's most dramatic moment. Yes, the effects are dated and this is an often laughable viewing experience (especially the hallucinations of the giant bees) but despite being overlong it's also very funny, intentionally or otherwise.