“Them is not the bees you’re lookin’ for?”

Drake’s rating: I should’ve stopped at Bee Girls

Drake’s review: OK, the timing of this review is incidental, I promise. Despite recently reviewing Invasion of the Bee Girls and following it up with an appraisal of this mid-70s Monday Night Movie, I am in no way the resident Mutant expert on all things apiary. I do know a bad movie when I see one, however, and I have The Savage Bees squarely in my sights.

So a bit of background here. Back in the 1970s, the dreaded “killer bee” made headlines as there was some worry that Africanized bees (a honey bee hybrid known for its aggression) would be invading the ol’ U.S. of A in massive numbers and wreaking havoc upon all who stood in the way of their dreaded swarm. Now while this didn’t happen, the concept was nevertheless the stuff that bad movies are made of, and in no time at all Killer Bees was premiering on the small screen on your local ABC affiliate.

Not to be outdone, NBC immediately commissioned their own take on the killer bee phenomenon, which took the world by storm. Watched by millions and lauded by critics, it feature legendary talent such as Elliot Gould, Jane Curtin, Chevy Chase and John Belushi.

I am talking, of course, about Saturday Night Live’s “Killer Bee” sketch:

Unfortunately, NBC didn’t stop while they were ahead, and instead decided that they also needed their own full-length movie showcasing the deadly menace of Apis mellifera scutellata Lepeletier. So it was that The Savage Bees premiered on November 22, 1976. Watched by thousands (I’m assuming) and ignored by the critics (I’m guessing), The Savage Bees is a pretty standard ‘70s TV movie starring a pretty standard assortment of TV actors led by screen veteran Ben Johnson (of Terror Train fame).

Johnson plays a Louisiana small-town sheriff by the name of McKew who runs across evidence of rather savage bee activities. Unable to simply round up and arrest the bees, he comes to rely on the local coroner and an entomologist to aid him in his quest to make Louisiana in general, and New Orleans in particular, safe for Mardi Gras, which is going on in the background as all of this happens.

We don’t get a whole lot of Mardi Gras here, but we DO get a pair of pirate-clad Mardi Gras revelers, so that’s something. It turns out that a fake pirate sword is no match for killer bees, although it does cut nicely through the protective beekeeper outfit that the expert beeologist* is wearing, which spells his untimely end.

Sadly, having a fake pirate slash his sword ineffectually through the air at a swarm of bees is as exciting as this flick gets. The finale consists of the entomologist driving her bee-covered Volkswagen Beetle through the swiftly-deserted streets of New Orleans at the breakneck speed of 15 miles per hour and into the newly-constructed Superdome where a technician turns the air conditioning up high enough to cool down the entire 125 million cubic feet of volume inside the massive structure to 45 degrees Fahrenheit (7.222 degrees Celsius for all of our non-American readers), all of which which sends the bees into a peaceful slumber.

Aww. Savage or not, they’re pretty cute when they get all snoozy.

The veteran acting talent keeps The Savage Bees from being a total waste of time, but all the same this one is hard to recommend unless you’ve already parsed through Killer Bees, The Swarm, and that episode of The Incredible Hulk where the Hulk fights a bee swarm and you’re somehow still jonesing for even more killer bee action.

It’s hard to make an exciting movie about searching for bees, battling with bureaucrats and having oh-so serious conversations over the phone, but that’s what The Savage Bees gives you. Come for the provocative title, stay because your cat batted the remote down the stairs and you really don’t feel like retrieving it right now.

*I’m pretty sure that’s the correct professional nomenclature.

Intermission!

• “Bees detest the colors black and red.” So if a swarm of bees attacks your local mall, for goodness sake stay out of Hot Topic!
• So many serious conversations about bees in this movie. SO MANY.
• So they warn us about the color red, and then the entomologist shows up in her bright red Volkswagen. Maybe she should have borrowed a friend’s car?
• No one will be seated during the air conditioning scene! Oh, wait, this was a TV movie. Yeah, go ahead and make a refrigerator run. This scene is far too boring and goes on far too long.
• CBS was not left out of the killer bee experience. In 1978 they produced Terror Out of the Sky, which was in fact a sequel to The Savage Bees. I haven’t seen it yet, but I fear that poor life decision is in my future.