36) The Swarm (1978)

1.5 out of 5

"Who would have thought the bees would be the first alien force to invade America?"

Director
Irwin Allen

Cast
Michael Caine - Dr. Bradford Crane
Katharine Ross - Helena Anderson
Richard Widmark - Major General Thaddeus Slater

Henry Fonda - Dr. Walter Krim
Richard Chamberlain - Dr. Hubbard
Olivia de Havilland - Maureen Schuester
Fred MacMurray - Clarence Tuttle
Ben Johnson - Felix Austin
Patty Duke Astin - Rita Bard
Slim Pickens - Jud Hawkins

I debated with myself as to whether the 1978 movie "The Swarm" is science fiction or horror. I didn't know where to put my commentary. Here on this platform? Or should I toss it onto my other platform, 1000daysofhorror.blogspot.com.

I read Arthur Herzog's novel of the same name last year which the movie is based on. Since Herzog is well known for being a science fiction writer as well as a writer of true crime, and the book feels a lot more like science fiction, posting my thoughts on the movie here makes more sense. 

Herzog's other well-known work involving animals gone crazy is "Orca" from 1977 about an whale that becomes a dangerous killer. That book was also given the film treatment in 1977. 

The novel "The Swarm" took some effort to get through. It has a few tidbits that grabbed my intrigue, particularly one scene in which a family goes on a picnic only to get attacked by a sudden swarm of bees that kill the parents and some of the children. The rest of the book feels like a bad science fiction B movie where "experts" in white lab coats talk among each other in science jargon trying to explain things and figure out a solution. The movie certainly doesn't stray from that style.  

The entire book centers on researchers and scientists trying to figure out why a hybrid breed of killer African bees is suddenly swarming in huge numbers and attacking entire populations of people. 

The final part of the book where men go head-to-head with these insufferable bees is where the book really grabbed my interest. 

There's some socio-political commentary as people take sides in regards to killing the bee populations or not. It becomes a political issue of sorts. I've read much more exciting and captivating books for sure!

The movie begins as an unknown force has just killed off everyone in a high-security U.S. Air Force bunker somewhere in Texas. 

Of course, in no time, Military officials find a huge swarm of bees flying near the base. These asshole bees, which are actually very aggressive Africanized killer bees, are the culprits in this devastation. 

Unbeknownst to the U.S. Military, a scientist named Dr. Bradford Crane (Micharl Caine) has been tracking these very bees for sometime. He's followed them to this restricted high-security base where he just meanders onto without any effort. 

Of course, he's arrested shortly after.

Crane tells whoever will listen that the bees pose a biological threat that can spread across the entire nation.

As is expected, the military leader, Maj. Gen. Thaddeus Slater (Richard Widmark) doesn't believe anything Crane has to say though the Major is even more confused than anyone else. But he doesn't believe the scientist! 

So, words are shouted, Chests are puffed out. And in no time, Crane and Slater come to an understanding. Afterall, Crane has Dr. Walter Krim (Henry Fonda) in Washington D.C. on his side. They're old buddies. So, that's good enough for the Major. 

Regardless, the bees swarm across Texas and attack a family during a picnic unprovoked. The parents are stung to death, but their son manages to barricade himself in the family car and drive back to town all while in complete shock and just watching his mom and dad die covered in bees. 

The swarm continues to breed and attack, and officials are scrambling to figure out how to stop them. Panic is spreading across the nation.

The killer bees quickly start attacking not only towns but transportation routes and key infrastructures. America is being invaded. 

Meanwhile, experts and officials try various tactics to kill these bees, but nothing seems to work. The bees are too smart and too strong.  

The military just want to drop all sorts of pesticides and the like. But Crane says this will kill the good bees along with the bad ones. If the good bees are dead, pollination will decrease considerably and crop production will suffer drastically. 

As the bees start heading for major cities, finding a solution against this buzzing force of nature is a race against the clock....like every other disaster movie. 

"The Swarm" came out towards the end of a cinematic trend of realistic disaster movies which saw big titles like "The Poseidon Adventure" (1972), "The Towering Inferno" (1974), "Earthquake" (1974) and one of my favorite movies, "Airport" (1970). These disaster movies often had all-star casts, severe life-or-death situations and were directed by Irwin Allen. They also reflect the societal fears of the era as well. "The Swarm" fits the criteria in pretty much every way, down to being directed by Irwin Allen. But they can't all be winners. 

Aside from Michael Caine and Henry Fonda, the movie also stars Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland, Patty Duke Astin, Fred MacMurray, Ben Johnson, Slim Pickens, and Katharine Ross. There's your all-star cast.  

Oh, the story also includes a romantic rivalry between Fred MacMurray, Olivia de Havilland and Ben Johnson that has absolutely nothing to do with anything else in the movie. Presumably this plot point is there to inject some human interest amid all the killer-bee chaos, but it feels completely disconnected from everything else going on. Still, this unimportant subplot involving very minor characters the audience knows nothing about because they're barely introduced is distracting and confusing.  

And then there's a scene in which a pregnant lady, played by Patty Duke Austin, goes to visit her doctor. They talk. She leaves. And the doctor looks as though he's in love with her. I honestly have no idea why this scene takes place nor do I know who the pregnant lady is supposed to be. Honestly, I thought I had missed a plot point earlier in the movie. This whole doctor visit scene threw me off.

Aside from trying to depict swarms of bees as frightening by covering actors with hundreds or thousands of them, the thought of which is scary enough, the movie trips over itself trying to really hammer in the fear factor. In one scene, a bee causes a train to derail and explode. In the beginning of the movie, the swarm even takes down some choppers! 

None of these scenes even compare to another scene in which the swarm cause an entire power plant to explode in a massive conflagration. 

Also, a lot of the dialogue coming from serious characters end up sounding overdramatic and absurd. Swarms of bees, which can be dangerous, are talked about like they're some sort of super-weapon that the experts are incapable of fighting against. This is all amidst the loads of scientific exposition. All this in a movie with a run-time of two hours and 35 minutes makes it a drawn out experience that drags on with worse and worse circumstances piling ontop of each other. 

I watched "The Swarm" on the Plex app which means I was interrupted every five minutes with two and a half minutes of the same commercials seemingly playing on a loop. And if you dare pause the movie on Plex, you're punished with extra ads. Well done, Plex. So, that didn't help. 

Sometimes the characters refer to the bees as the "Africans" which is a bit weird, too.

Thanks to that reference, the audience gets lines like, "Dr. Hubbard was out collecting live Africans. He's brought them back to the complex!" Slow clap for the script writers!

So, these "Africans" (again, the movie's term - not mine) behave like some sort of coordinated army. They plan their attacks, and invade specific enclosed areas within buildings as if they know who's on which floor of any given structure. 

The whole movie is clunky. I don't even know what this movie is trying to be. Is it a horror movie? Is it some sort of ecological or enviornmental sermon? Is it a creature feature? Is it a military/sci-fi monster flick? I don't know!

Now, I think Michael Caine is a brilliant and serious actor. I like his performances in so many movies - "Zulu," "Second Hand Lions," and even "The Muppet Christmas Carol." But the look on his face throughout the movie screams, "Just give me my paycheck, and let's end this!" 

Anyways, I can't just kick this movie when it's down. I'll throw some praise at it for its large-scale destruction sequences, actor performances while covered in bees, the general use of real bees in several scenes, the impressive cast of actors, and the general effort of the movie. It's clearly there. "The Swarm" does try to be a thrilling and terrifying movie. It just didn't score in the end.
It's way too long, has unintentionally hilarious melodramatic and bloated science-y dialogue. But I'll give it a half-point for its ambition and it's few genuinely suspenseful moments. Sadly, that didn't make it any easier to sit through.