Navigation

The Deadly Bees (1966)

Dir: Freddie Francis

Suzanne "Lust for a Vampire" Leigh stars as Vicki Robins, a poor singing star who collapses from the stress of miming badly to even worse songs, and goes to relax in the worst place to relax on the face of the Earth, namely 'Seagull Island'.
This just happens to be the same island that some nutbag Bee Keeper keeps writing 'I have Bees!! Killer Bees!! Take notice of me and my Bees!!' type letters to the Government (why is never made clear, perhaps he wants to sell them to the Military as Commando Bees) but they keep on filing them in the rubbish bin.

Vicki goes to stay at the farmhouse of Ralph and Mary Hargrove (Guy Doleman, "The Ipcress File"and Catherine Finn, "The Creeping Flesh" ).
Ralph also happens to supply lovely honey for breakfast!
This can only mean one thing! Yes, he is an obsessed...Bee Keeper! An obsession that causes friction with the bee hating Mary, who sees Ralph get up to strange things at night with his horse (No, not that! D'Amato is not in the director's chair), namely draining blood from it into a syringe.

Taking the Hargrove's dog for a walk one day she meets the rather creepy (to the viewer anyway, kind hearted, dumb as rocks, Mary fails to notice) H.W. Manfred (Frank Finlay, BBC's "Count Dracula", "Lifeforce") who Ralph does not like. It seems to be a case of simple rivalry.
Why? Well because creepy H.W is an obsessed...Bee keeper! (Oh dear! Another one!).

When a swarm of bees ('Deadly Bees' even) pops up and causes mayhem Vicki suspects the mysterious Ralph is to blame and so, together with 'Creepy' Manfred, sets out to prove her suspicions........

I have to say that "The Deadly Bees", by British company 'Amicus' best known for their Horror Anthology films, was better than I expected.
The idea of Bees being used as a murder weapon was a fun if deranged idea. Even though it had no real grounds in reality, despite Manfred's pseudo science babble and his compilation tape of the 'Deaths Head Moth's greatest hits'. Don't ask, you won't stop laughing for a week and I won't be blamed for the disruption to your life this could cause.

The bee attack effects were pretty bad for the most part with dubious optical FX and very un-bee looking plastic 'bees' stuck to the actors' faces.
But the close ups of real bees on skin were good (including a couple of actual stingings, with the bee leaving the sting behind) and these inserts helped the attacks a great deal.
An 'after sting' face of a victim was also nicely grotesque.

The cast all handle their roles well, with special mention to Guy Doleman who gave a suitably upperclass arrogance to his strangely likeable character (as he did in the 'Harry Palmer' 'films where he had some wonderful scenes of class tension with Michael Caine's working wlass spy).
Leigh was also pretty good, giving us a strong female character who could handle herself and didn't stand around screaming. But saying that, she does make a very nice picture in her various underwear scenes. Hey, I'm all for strong women in films, but a few lingerie shots are most welcome also!

Findlay was fun as Manfred, and gave a genuine sense of the amateur sleuth at work, but Freddie Francis fails to control the 'creep' factor of the character which moves into melodrama too often, though it's enjoyable on a cheese-movie level.
Finn is also good as the strung (stung) out Wife and gives a wonderfully manic performance after finding her dead dog.
Also look out for another solid turn by British Horror film stalwart Michael Ripper, playing a pub owning Policeman. Proving that it was not just 'Hammer' films that stuck him with the same two or three roles.

Direction by Francis is his typical unexciting 'stick the camera down and shout action before taking a nap' style, with little pacing in the film to give it the energy a movie with such a ludicrous basic idea needs to keep the plot's silliness off the viewers mind.
The indoor for outdoor farmhouse set, though wonderfully detailed, is sadly obvious and loses the film a lot atmosphere and screams it's low budget at you. A nice bit of island location filming would have opened the film up and added a touch of class.

Overall a fun little romp, with some nice acting, enjoyably trashy effects and a delightfully silly plot.