905-The Deadly Bees

Film Year:  1966

Genre:  Horror

Director:  Freddie Francis

Starring:  Suzanna Leigh, Guy Doleman, Frank Finlay, Catherine Finn, Michael Ripper, Katy Wild

MST Season:  9

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

The first draft of the script to The Deadly Bees was written by Robert Bloch, who penned the novel Psycho, which was soon adapted into the famous film by Alfred Hitchcock.  The Deadly Bees owes a lot to Hitchcock's followup to that feature, an adaptation of the short story The Birds, which Alfred turned into a movie about a blonde bombshell running from superimposed birds.  The Deadly Bees is a movie about a blonde bombshell running away from superimposed honey bees.  This particular blonde is an overworked pop star who is sent to rest on a bee keeping farm, only to suspect that the beekeeper might be hiding a secret deadly swarm that he uses to attack people.

Based on the novel A Taste for Honey, The Deadly Bees was originally written by Bloch as a vehicle for Boris Karloff and Christopher Lee (which I would have loved to see, mind you).  Scheduling/payday issues and rewrites led to neither actor appearing in the film and Karloff's character being replaced by Suzanna Leigh's pop idol character for some added sex appeal (I guess if we can't have Karloff, an attractive woman in a nightie will suffice).  Apparently the film was altered so much it only had base similarities to both the original novel and Bloch's screenplay.

Despite being directed by a Hammer Horror veteran, Freddie Francis (who directed Nightmare, The Evil of Frankenstein, and Dracula Has Risen from the Grave), The Deadly Bees features very little flair.  It's a fairly plain looking movie that takes a while to get into motion.  Once it starts getting into the meat of killer bee action, the film superimposes swarming bees on the screen and glues large plastic bee replicas to the actors' faces, never really creating much of an illusion that anybody is in danger because the bees and the actors always seem separate from each other.

But if there was something about this movie that I think is it's major failing, it's the lead character, played by Suzanna Leigh.  Leigh is pretty decent in the movie, and a lovely woman to boot, but she's too much of an outlier.  Most of the film takes place on humble little ranches and countrysides, and for some reason the filmmakers feel as if their main character needs to be a glamorous singer from the big city who just happens to be there.  It gives her ignorance of the situation to allow the mystery of the bees to play out, but the clash between the two classes does nothing for the film.  She could have easily been a distant family member visiting for the weekend, rather than contriving a story about a stressed celebrity trying to avoid anxiety on a bee farm.

That being said, the movie is okay enough.  At the very least, the mystery element is fairly well told.  The red haring misdirects might be all-to-obvious for a casual viewer, but it's a fair journey for a low-key killer critter movie like this.  The clash between Hargrove and Manfred provides some character interest, even if their character tropes are cranked up to eleven to smokescreen the audience over who is the hero and who is the villain.

I have a hard time picturing anyone having any strong feelings one way or the other about The Deadly Bees.  The very most you could probably get out of it is that it's a painless way to kill eighty minutes.  The least is that it's a shoddy little horror movie that doesn't feature much thrills or chills, which could make it boring.  I don't hate it.  I think it has some base charm to it, but it's not a movie I'd recommend.

The Episode

Previously on the Satellite of Love...

"DON'T MAKE ME SHOOT YOU!   CROOOOOOOOOOOOOW!"

And now, for the thrilling conclusion.

The unofficial British trilogy of the ninth season gets it's middle chapter with a batch of Deadly Bees swarming the theater.  This movie isn't particularly engaging, but Mike and the Bots have a knack for poking their noses in every corner of it, searching for its personality and enhancing it.  Character traits are already heightened for the movie (subtly isn't the movie's specialty), which means they choose to enhance them even more.  The bickering between the Hargroves is turned into a loveless, angry marriage.  The flirtation Katy gives Hargrove turns into a full blown affair.  Vikki's paranoia is turns her into a clueless, easily manipulated bimbo.  There are a lot of little things in this movie they latch onto and turn it into a quirk, which goes an extra mile in making this movie entertaining.  But whatever they do for this movie can't help the movie's pacing issues.  It's a bit slow and dull, and while making the characterization funnier makes it a bit easier to handle, waiting for something to happen in this movie is a thankless task and it sinks the experience.

Probably the defining moment of the episode is the very last scene, in which a ministry agent that was sent to investigate the killings arrives just a day too late, arriving during the end credits with quirky music, as a sort of a final joke to relieve the "tension" of the picture by taking a stab at bureaucracy.  The movie assumes too much of the audience to remember them setting up this silly joke over an hour ago, and it comes off as just a random guy walking in on the movie that's already ended.  The intent is there, but it's poorly delivered, and it leaves the riffers and the viewers at home a bit bewildered.

"Hello?  I'm here for the movie, am I late?"

Naturally, the Bowler Hat Guy becomes a recurring gag during the end scenes, in which Jim Mallon wanders into the host segments with a Bowler Hat and interrupts them, tipping his hat as he walks by.  What does he interrupt?  Not a whole lot on the Satellite, which is mostly just random, goofy skits like Mike portraying the body movement of bees or Crow reading a sonnet to Hargrove's wife.  At Castle Forrester, it's another story, as the Observers return to take our Observer with them to rebuild their society.  I like the idea of this storyline, but I feel it's underdone.  It's told with minimal screentime and mostly seems to be present so they can set up a silly song in the middle of the episode (which isn't particularly great, in my opinion).  I thought the climactic mind battle between the observers was cute, but I can't help but feel there could be more done with this story and it became mostly a throwaway.

Highlighting the host segments is the intro segment, which dishes out "Previously on the Satellite of Love..." while Mike and the Bots play out a bunch of cliched soap operatics that would have happened if the show were a drama.  It's probably one of the best host segments of the entire series.

I think a solid argument can be made that The Deadly Bees is the best episode of the mini-British invasion of the ninth season of Mystery Science Theater.  Unfortunately that doesn't really allow it to rise above middling.  There are some pretty good chuckles here, and I can see this episode being something of a sleeper hit episode where someone would hear its title and say "Oh!  I really like that one!"  For me, the movie is a bit too dry, and the riffing gives it a much needed energy, but not enough to make me come back for more too often.  It's worth a look though.  Maybe you'll love it a lot more than I do.

Overall, I give this episode twenty-eight stars.

Minor Note:  They have some fun with this episode's end credit sequence, as prop diva Beth "Beez" McKeever is credited as "The Deadly Beez."  She must have been tickled by the title to this movie.

Average

The DVD

The Deadly Bees hasn't swarmed our DVD shelves, but Shout Factory included the episode's host segments as a part of their Satellite Dishes host segment compilation on Volume XXXIX, along with the other unreleased episodes.