A deadly cross breed of African bee descends upon New Orleans during Mardi Gras.I watched this one recently and was amazed to discover it was a film I had seen many, many years previously on television; I think it must've been the late 70's it made it to the UK. A couple of scenes evidently stayed in my memory. The first was a point of view shot from the perspective of the bees as they rise high in the air over some trees as they pursue a little fleeing girl. The other scene was the finale where a Volkswagen Beetle drives slowly through town covered in the bees. So, this flick evidently made some impression on my very young mind.Even before realising I had seen The Savage Bees before I was already onside with it. The reason is that I have a real soft spot for 70's American TV movies. I find them cosy and charming and this one was certainly no different. It seems like many even proclaim that this remains the best killer bee film out there, which is pretty impressive given that there have been some cinematic attempts; films that clearly would have had more money and less censorship restrictions imposed on them. I guess it shows that it all comes down to how well the story is presented on screen and it is well told here. Like many others, this one shows the definite influence of the big blockbuster of the time, Jaws (1975). Many animals attack films followed the Jaws template pretty closely and Savage Bees is no exception, seeing as it has characters discover the bee threat but being disbelieved by the authorities whose main concern is the money-making festival that is Mardi Gras. But it uses its influences well and the resultant film is good, with a finale that is quite memorable, after all I remembered it from over thirty five years ago!

I say Ben Johnson and my fellow Canadians say, "Ben Johnson?!" - he was a goddam MOVIE STAR guys, a COWBOY, and by 1976 he was scraping by playing a sheriff in stupid made for TV disaster movies such as this, cashing in on the DEADLY SWARMS OF KILLER BEES that everyone apparently thought were coming to get us at the time. So there's these bees, and they kill some people by flying in their mouth and going after them underwater. Eventually these idiots find the swarm and die and this woman is trapped in her car by the entire swarm. The cops are like, what do we do? Uh, bees die when it's cold. So where could we make it cold? I know - the stadium in New Orleans! So they drive this car and its attendant swarm of killer bees on and on through the streets of New Orleans, with a bullhorn saying "GET OFF THE STREETS OR YOU WILL BE STUNG TO DEATH." And the future home of tens of thousands of flood victims with its broken toilets so becomes the narcotic doom of this particular buncha bees. I don't know which is the greater indignity on this great city...well I do, but this one sucks too. Most appropriately viewed on an extremely faded-to-orange 16mm print, although Betamax is a good alternative!

I remember seeing this movie on T.V. as it was starting back in the 70's and being just too lazy to get up and change the channel thinking "not another killer bee movie". I'm glad we didn't have remote controls back then, as this proved to be very good little made-for-TV flick.First off, the movie does a very good job with the "science" aspect, explaining how the very aggressive African Killer Bees are making their way to the U.S. and are almost unstoppable. Also, the cast does a very good job in building suspense and empathy in the characters they portrayed, with the strongest by Gretchen Corbett as the lead female character, with the weakest character being the sheriff.In spite of being made in 1976, this movie is surprisingly not all that dated in look and atmosphere. The pacing is good and the effects are fine for this type of movie, although, with all of the computer tricks available now, they could have enhanced some of the final scenes. But, again, the performances are good enough to make up for any short comings in the effects department.I recently dug this movie up in a box of video tapes I had recorded in the 80's and decided to put it to the real test. I invited my 13 year old son in to watch some of it with me, and after 15 minutes or so he was hooked and wanted to watch the whole movie.It seems that they never show these good old made-for-TV movies on T.V. any more, so a DVD release would be nice. This one gets 8 out of 10. You will forever associate the Voltz-Wagon Bug with this movie.

This is a tense thriller that shows, in no uncertain terms how real and deadly the Killer Bee threat really is. This film shows, with scientific plausibility, the City of New Orleans coming under the increasing threat of a large killer swarm approaching town on the eve of Mardi Gras. Unlike Irwin Allen's The Swarm, whose main objective was to show one celebrity guest star after another being stung to death, this film is more like a cross between a tense sci fi thriller and a Hitchcock film. Obviously a TV film cannot posses the cinematic genius of a Hitchcock film, yet this little gem comes close. The team of scientists, (aided by the local sherriff) that are trying to thwart the disaster deal with a slow subtle(at first), steadily climbing stream of attacks. The threat grows as the attacks continue, and for awhile it looks like the bees will win out. The death scenes are the most realistic ever shown in a killer bee film, one senses what it might actually be like to meet this horrible fate. Also a first, this film gives the actual history of how the bees came to invade South & Central America, and deals with the scientific realities of how to stop this menace. Now that there have been killer bee deaths in the United States, this film rings even more true than when it first was telecast in 1976.