User Reviews

I don't even know where to begin as I sit down to review "Deadly Swarm." Here is a movie about killer wasps with absolutely no sting. I know it sounds like I'm trying to be witty, but it's the truth. Miramax and Lionsgate definitely played it smart when dumping this straight-to-DVD and Blu-ray.

Crazed scientist Jacob Schroeder (J. Patrick McCormack) stops at nothing to trap thousands of killer wasps in the jungle of Guatemala. He's convinced that the venom from their stingers can be used for medicinal purposes to fight serious illnesses. The truck they are smuggled in crashes during an attempting to transport them across the border into the U.S. The container the wasps are held in breaks open, unleashing them on the innocent citizens of a small town. American entomologist Daniel Lang (Shane Brolly) and a meddlesome writer Sandra Kern (Kaarina Aufranc) must find a way to stop them before they wipe out everything in their path.

"Deadly Swarm" does have an interesting story to tell and a simple question to answer. The plot is well thought out but loses its potency somewhere in the transition from script to screen. The question asked is one brought up by Mr. Spock first in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan."

Do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one? Are the deaths of a couple thousand residents of a small town insignificant if it helps to create medicines that can cure millions? Pretty deep stuff for a film about killer wasps to tackle.

The special effects for "Deadly Swarm" are what we've come to expect from these types of nature-gone-awry flicks. The cloud of wasps is evidently CGI and filmmakers don't really try too hard to hide it. How much extra money could it possibly take to make a cluster of wasps look more realistic? The giant welts found on the bodies of their victims are convincing and rather nasty looking, though.

The biggest problem with "Deadly Swarm" is it isn't visually graphic enough. People who watch these types of horror movies want to "see" the wasps stinging and crawling all over the victims. They want more gore and graphic imagery. This seems intent on playing it safe to appeal to a wider audience. Many viewers attracted by the "Not Rated" tagline are going to be angry or disappointed as the credits roll.

Even though "Deadly Swarm" is "Not Rated," it really should be PG-13. There's some bad language sprinkled throughout and scenes of victims with welts all over their bodies. The film is devoid of any nudity or sexuality, unless you consider a girl in a half shirt obscene.

I'm not entirely sure how "Deadly Swarm" came to be released by Miramax and Lionsgate. It's tailor-made for the SyFy Channel and obviously barely missed the clutches of Roger Corman. The only reason I could see Corman passing this up is if the filmmakers just flat out refused to allow him to have bikini-clad women running around senselessly while trying to escape being stung by wasps. It's B-movie fodder without the self-aware charm found in the Asylum or Corman's releases.

*****PLOT SPOILERS*****

The movie opens in Guatemala where a man in military garb threatens to kill a native boy unless the guide takes them to a specific, but "very dangerous" place. The native guide takes them to ancient ruins, but eventually runs away. The hired translator is killed easily by a booby trap. (He must have thought that ruins are safe for strangers. You think he would notice that if the rest of his party are in protective suits, that being in shorts and a t-shirt wouldn't help him any) Then two more extras, though they are in protective gear, fade to black screaming as wasps (or bees, I couldn't tell the difference) appear. Then the two remaining guys, the main bad guy and his right hand goon, who are unharmed, hand this huge crate to this trucker, warning him not to open it. Of course the truck crashes. Like we didn't see that coming. The first police officer on the scene inspects the truck and though a lot of the crates are broken, showing drugs and other contraband, he approaches this one unbroken crate and opens it, and dies. The resident scientist, (Shane Brolly) is on the crash site and finds what looks to be an empty hive in the opened crate, and the police officer apparently "stung to death". He tries to adivse the mayor, who naturally refuses to close a coincidental "festival" in hopes of making more money from tourists. Blah, blah, blah, lots of people are killed during the festival and the bad guys conviently arrive, promising to provide medical help. Basically, the military bad guy obtained a hive of really, nasty killer bees. Even though the truck crashes, there's a town of about 500 people that are excellent test subjects. Why? Because the military posing as medical scientists are looking for the one person out of 500 people that survives the wasp stings. And guess what, if the military finds someone that can survive the stings, and can make an antibiotic out of their blood, then the wasps turn in a biological weapon or a possible cure for diseases. Oooooooooooooooo.... So the leading lady just happens to be the one that survives. The scientist confronts the bad guy who has taken the queen, and is holding the lady hostage. The bad guy is in an protective suit, while the scientist and lady are in their street clothes, and all three are standing in front of the hive and no one gets stung. (Even though there was a guy with a smoke machine and when the smoke clears, the wasps are busy elsewhere until the bad guy dies) Obvious plot problems: 1. There are four guys in protective suits, and two guys are apparently killed and the other two remain alive only because they are the bad guys, and bad guys don't die until the end of the film. 2. If there's a hive within a crate, those wasps are going to be royally p***ed off, so the box would be totally humming. Yet the trucker, the customs officer, and the police officer don't seem to notice that there's a hive of really angry wasps shut in a wooden crate. 3. When the leading lady is found to be immune to the wasp stings, the bad guys tries to take the queen and run. The queen is carefully extracted from the hive and put in a metal box. I'm no entomologist, but I would think that if the queen was threatened in any way, the rest of the hive wouldn't be just flying around even with smoke around. They would be attacking anything that moved, protective suits or not. 4. As in all insect movies, the only way to kill them is to either kill them all in a huge explosion, which is nearly impossible; or suddenly introduce a natural disaster or predator to the killer insects. In this case, when the scientist and the leading lady are running for their lives (even though trying to outrun a swarm of insects is pointless), who comes to save them? Is it a giant explosion? No. Is it a giant flood? Not a chance. No, a gigantic swarm of bats (which the scientist just happened to be studying and attracting with tape recorded sounds of wasps) appears and proceeds to attack the swarm of wasps. And the scientist assures the leading lady, "Don't worry, bats eat hundreds of insects every night. Those wasps don't stand a chance." Yeeeeaaaahhhhhhhhh, right. Predictable and abismal dialogue, obvious plot, and bad computer effects surround this movie. I have a great time laughing, it's like watching a comedy. If you like laughing at bad horror movies like me, then you'll enjoy this movie. It's right up there with Marabunta, the Killer Ants, but where as the ants are "killed" by a flood; the wasps are killed by a conviently timed swarm of bats. Guess the perfect followup movie to this would be the movie with Lou Diamond Phillips about killer bats. hehehehehehe

**** Spoilers **** I have to admit up front that I saw this on the Sci-Fi channel, so I'm reviewing the edited version, though I don't think an unedited version would be any better.

The plot is similar to every other movie with an insect/ reptile/ animal attacking a small town. A scientist and a nosy reporter try to warn townspeople about an impending killer wasp attack, but the corrupt/ greedy/ stubborn mayor won't listen because of the upcoming festival and the lost business. Sound familiar? You bet, and it's been done way better in loads of other movies.

The bad guy, your run-of-the-mill nasty scientist, is the only actor who doesn't embarrass himself, though his character and motives are sorely underdeveloped. Shane Brolly, the lead, and I'm being kind here, is wooden and gets upstaged by his hair. His final turn as action hero is simply laughable. The female reporter, I'm not even going to take a stab at her name, can't figure out the proper look on her face for the emotion she is trying to show, so she usually settles for a simpering little smile. Ugh. Pepe Serna chews scenery and delivers his lines badly as the town lawman.

Skip this turkey and and check out the 1967 movie The Deadly Bees.

Deadly Swarm starts in 'Central Guatamala' where evil misguided scientist Dr. Schroeder (J. Patrick McCormack) has found a new species of Wasp, a deadly species of Wasp known as 'Black Fire' that he hopes will help him create a cure for various diseases, don't ask. Dr. Schroeder pays a local drug runner to take the deadly Wasp's over the border & back into the U.S. but en route the truck crashes & the deadly Wasp's are released! At a nearby Mexican town American entomologist Daniel Lang (Shane Brolly) is conducting research on Mosquito's when his friend Commandante Alvarez (Pepe Serna) ask's him to take a look at the crash site because the first Officer on the scene is now dead covered in stings & since Daniel is an expert on insects, well you get the idea. At first Daniel isn't sure but finds a large hive made from bone fragments in a box in the back of the truck which he takes away for analysis. Meanwhile nosey novelist Sandra Kern (Kaarina Aufranc) senses a story & sticks close to Daniel as he discovers that these deadly Wasp's lay eggs in their victims which eventually hatch sending 1000's more Wasp's on their way to repeat the process, they must be stopped as does the dangerous experiments of Schroeder...

This American Mexican co-production was directed by Paul Andresen & is a bit of a snooze-fest. The script takes itself extremely seriously & is rather mundane & predictable not to mention the fact that it's a little on the clichéd side. I mean there's the good looking hero, a good scientist, an evil misguided scientist, a reporter, the uncaring Mayor who doesn't want to cancel a local festival for money reasons, the police guy & the disposable victims, they're all here. The film is pretty dull to watch, it's far from exciting as it plods along in a fairly standard linear way, there is at first an unidentified threat, hero identifies threat & then destroys threat & gets the girl & that's it, that's as much & as original as Deadly Swarm strives to be, it's as simple & straight forward as that. The character's are OK & it moves along at a reasonable pace but I just couldn't stop myself from becoming bored with it. There's a real lack of action or Wasp attacks & the climax absolutely sucks & isn't worth watching the preceding 80 minutes to see. I'm not sure about the start either, are the filmmakers really trying to tell us that a deadly species of Wasp lives only in the abandoned ruins of a Aztec temple (or whatever it is) & never leave it's confines, I mean Wasp's can fly can't they? Why don't they just fly away? Why live in some ruins? What do they eat? Why has no one ever seen them before? Also, while on the subject of these Wasp's they're a bit dull & mundane in themselves aren't they? I mean their not mutated Wasp's, not genetically engineered Wasp's, giant over-sized Wasp's or anything like that they're just, well ordinary looking Wasp's which just didn't inspire or excite me at all.

Director Andresen doesn't do anything particularly memorable, the film has a certain made-for-TV look & feel to it. When you think about it Deadly Swarm doesn't make a whole lot of sense, there are no scares, there's no shocks & the Wasp attack scenes are pretty bad with terrible CGI. There is no gore whatsoever, a few people covered in stings but that's it apart from a scene when a swarm of Wasp's emerge from someones stomach but the CGI is so bad during this scene it doesn't count & there's no blood either.

Technically Deadly Swarm is competent & generally well made except for some awful special effects, the Mexican locations are quite bright & nice but hardly worth watching the film for. The acting wasn't up to much & didn't do anything for me.

Deadly Swarm is a lame killer bug film that lacks any gore, any action & has a predictable & dull story. If you haven't already seen 100 films like this (which I have unfortunately) then you may like it as it's watchable but it won't knock anyone's socks off that's for sure. Only if your desperate or easily pleased.

Convoluted and ridiculously lame. A scatter-brained story line is easy to cause confusion. An entomologist(Shane Brolly)is searching out a rain forest to trap thousands of killer wasps in hopes their venom may hold the cure for his seriously ill wife. Of course, as expected, the wasps get loose and must be stopped for they have killed before and expected to rack up a huge body count. Lethal swarm of wasps..huh. Special effects are low budget and really not fearsome at all. At times you have no idea if the flying pests are wasps or bees.Also in the cast: Kaarina Aufranc, Roger Nevares and Hugo Esquinca. You can blame the Sci-Fi Channel and the USA Network for letting this one out.

Deadly Swarm is a perfect example of the "Cheese SciFi" genre that I have become so attached to. It definitely requires a large suspension of disbelief, but is quite good once you get into it.

Basically, for a non-disclosed reason, surviving being stung by the wasps means that, somehow you hold a cure for cancer. Now, it's not specified whether this cure is a genetic thing, or a cure that could be distributed, and there are signs in the movie that point both ways.

It has a similar aspect of entertainment to Die Hard, in that it has random explosions and very little in the way of plot to get in the way of the nonstop action. It is generic "hero warns of scourge, is ignored, scourge attacks earth/village/town/city, the guy who ignored the hero gets his just deserts, ridiculous Deus Ex Machina resolution, ride off into the sunset" at it's best. Highly recommend for fans of b-movie SciFi.

I was looking for an easy to follow but not too absurd "rampaging mutant insects" movie and I found this one. And..... I liked it. I found the plot line easy to follow and the dialogue just narrative enough that I could mutli-task doing 14 other things while watching it and still know what was going on. I'd love to sit down with Roger Ebert's little brown book of movie clichés and see how many i could find in this movie... i'm sure the count would be close to 100 (i.e. the bad guy who spends precious escape time after wounding the hero to tell him all about the experiment gone awry and why he is really doing good for all making... not slaughtering hundreds of people - and that's just before he "gets it" from the girl). I think anyone who watches this knows what they are getting. Make a game of it and stop every 15 minutes or so and see if you can predict what's next.

"Deadly Swarm" is a really unremarkable killer bug movie.

**SPOILERS**

After a series of bug reports, Daniel Lang, (Shane Brolly) is asked by Mexican officials to leave the country, only for Sandra Kearn, (Kaarina Anfranc) and her assistant Charlie Moreno, (Freddy Soto) to stumble upon a strange accident where the victims appeared to be stung to death. After finding a strange nest at the site, he takes it back for study and suspects that it's wasps. Thinking she has a story due to several more strange accidents around the local town, and when they find that the problem is the wasps, they turn over the information to Commandante Alvarez, (Pepe Serna) who tries to block the town's activities. When they decide to keep the festival as planned, a massacre of the town from the wasps soon occurs, forcing them to notify that the wasps are actually genetically enhanced wasps as a cover to develop antibodies from the stings. With that last bit of information, they raid the countryside in an attempt to locate who left them in the way of the threat before more are attacked.

The Good News: There really wasn't a whole lot about this one. The big thing in this one is that the wasps do get in a fairly large number of attacks. The opening scene in the jungle, where we see them swarm the group through the visor of the lead victim, is a really impressive visual and a creative way to introduce the threat. A later attack on a minivan is a big suspense scene and brings the film's few true spectacle scenes. The big one, though, is the main assault during the festival. This is simply fun to see as there's so many going on that it's nearly impossible to see everything and the few glimpses given amount to a lot of disaster. The panic, the chaos and sheer pandemonium unleashed is a fine sight to see, and that's also a pretty lengthy one is a good sign. The real action scene is the morgue assault, where the sight of the mortician succumbing to the creatures engulfing the room and the escape to the quick solution to stop them resulting in some nice action scenes. It's also surprisingly watchable, never really generating a lot of boredom or the need to turn it off, as the attacks are fairly spaced out and this keeps the interest up. The only other part that really works is the twist, which is set-up to merely be some form, but the actual one taken is a pretty clever one. It's obvious that there's going to be some kind, but the one used is a rarely used one and is to be commended. Otherwise, this was just fine.

The Bad News: This here wasn't that great and did have some problems. The big one is that they're definitely running out of ways to kill the wasps, which the way they are finally overcome is one of the most cop-out endings ever seen. Bit of credit due for not having them blow the nest up but ending with all the wasps getting eaten by a bunch of bats. This is just insanely stupid and doesn't even come as off as that well done. It just happens, and doesn't even say why this has happened or why they knew where they were. It just doesn't make sense in any way shape or form. Another big flaw is that the creatures are CGI and obviously so. There's never really any instance where the film offers them as anything other than a series of badly-done CGI models. They offer up no threat and there's nothing to prove otherwise since there's no indication that they are real. The other real problem is that this is just a by-the-numbers affair that offers up no surprises. There's nothing here that differentiates it from just about any other creature feature out there other than a change of creature. This here will lower it much more than others, and affects it the most. It's decent but has it's own problems.

The Final Verdict: While not as bad as it could've been, this is still only a decent entry in the genre that doesn't really have anything else beyond decent films. Give it a shot if it sounds like fun, but those who don't really like these kinds of films won't find anything here to really sway them to it either.

Rated R: Violence and Language