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A True Bee-Movie (har har):
Killer Bees
Starring C. Thomas Howell, Fiona Loewi, and Michael P. Northey Written by Dana Stone Directed by Penelope Buitenhuis Canadian, 2002 NOTE: this movie is also known as Killer Bees! with an exclamation mark. I admit, I have an admiration for insects. I've always thought that they were just the coolest animals, especially ants and bees. I could watch them work and build things for hours. However, most of the public doesn't share my fascination, and indeed, are afraid of insects, particularly bees. After all, they can sting. So, a whole sub-genre of movies is opened up: killer bee movies. Unfortunately, these movies often stretch the truth, and this movie is certainly no exception. It also fits my working theory: Canadian Movies Are Almost Always Bad Movies. So let's go. We see the credits, as well as a close-up of a honeybee crawling over a flower. As the credits progress we are confounded with an image of a CG bee flying over more flowers. It looks so fake, and is a good indication of the movie's budget. I'll cut the movie some slack; it is a TV movie. We don't see the phony insect long, as it flies off-camera. We then assume the bee's perspective, and fly very fast over farmer's fields and over barns. It flies past a father and son playing catch, and comes to a rest in a pile of junk on their property. We cut to said father and son. The dad asks the kid questions about farming, testing him. They play catch in front of a rustic farmhouse at dusk. The kid wears a t-shirt that reads "young agrarian". Thus, we firmly establish that they are a farming family. Among the questions, the dad asks his son when mom's birthday is. Just then, the kid misses the ball (it looks like he deliberately missed it), and he runs to catch it as it rolls away into the junk pile. The kid blindly sticks his arm in there, and we find a whole mess of bees crawling around. He gets stung feeling around for the ball, and when he tries to pull away, his shirt gets stuck on the junk. He calls out for help as bees start emerging from the pile. Dad runs over and the bees swarm. The bees look awful. They are black CG specks that don't even fly like bees. They fly much too slowly and cleanly for bees. Some very basic computer algorithm must have dictated the positions and velocities of the individual 'bees', and it shows. Anyway, dad frees his son and the kid runs for the safety of their truck. The bees sting dad until he falls to the ground and dies. The kid watches from the car. The young actor pretends to cry, but does a poor job of looking shocked or sad. Fast forward thirty years or so. The kid grows up into a (slimmer) man, Lyndon Harris (C. Thomas Howell), who is now the sheriff of the small farming town of Sumas. It could be Sumas, Washington, but the movie doesn't make that clear. Anyway, he's on patrol, and calls his dim-witted but eager deputy named Slim on the radio. Slim is very into his job. Lyndon listens to the radio and looks for trouble. He sees a man who may or may not be a farmer building a fence along the road. Lyndon slows down to say hello, but the man doesn't reply and looks at Lyndon funny. This is setting up the fact that Lyndon isn't well liked. We cut to Sumas' downtown area, such that it is. A banner strung over the main road proclaims that the Honey Festival is coming. He drives through and later pulls up to a small rural house. He walks in and finds his two kids, Dylan and Cassidy. Dylan is playing the guitar, but stops when Lyndon enters. Dylan then leaves. Lyndon calls his wife Audrey, asking for a clean "duty shirt". She comes down from upstairs and says that she got a job as an assistant manager at the local Dairy Castle. We learn that they're not actually married anymore, but separated, and that he doesn't spend enough time (in her opinion) at home with the kids. Well, you ARE separated. Cassidy is cultivating a beehive for the festival, and Lyndon seems a little alarmed. He doesn't want to go near the 'super', which is the name for those crates that domesticated bees are kept in.  Fig. 1 - A Stack of Supers He drives, pulling off his wedding band. At this point, I made the prediction that something would happen to heal their marriage by the end of the film. Lyndon stops at his old farmhouse, the one seen at the beginning of the film. He replays some of Audrey's comments in his head, and we hear them with an echo effect. I hate movies with audible thought processes. A sign in front of the abandoned house declares that this will be the site of a new 'Meglomart'. Ah, this movie has two messages, one about bees and one about big evil stores like Wal-Mart. Lyndon misses his house. We hear an evil chord of music, and a truck loaded with supers rumbles down the road behind Lyndon. We now cut to Zeke's farmhouse. Mayor Ditmuller and Lyndon stand there, along with a few others, waiting for Zeke to leave the house. Ditmuller is an older man with glasses and a bad toupee. Zeke is an old farmer who is, needless to say, quite angry. Mayor Ditmuller informs Zeke that the bank now owns this property and they have to leave. Zeke retrieves a shotgun and points it at them. Ditmuller shouts, "Sheriff, he's got a gun!" and Zeke shoots at them. Everyone falls in alarm except Lyndon, who looks bored. Ditmuller loses his toupee and quickly puts it back on. Zeke calls Lyndon a traitor and asks for some time to collect some personal items. Ditmuller wants to press charges, but then Zeke pops out again and runs for his truck. Ditmuller shouts, "He's going for the truck!" Yeah, I can see. Zeke drives off, and Ditmuller is mad, claiming that it is now his truck Zeke is stealing. Lyndon defends Zeke, but begrudgingly agrees to get the truck back. Ditmuller then says this: "You just make sure it's sooner than later."Sooner than later? Either a) a dummy wrote this line, or b) a kid who hasn't learned basic grammar wrote this line. Now we're downtown again. Lyndon walks into the police station and we see Deputy Slim again. Lyndon is going to give Zeke a week to move out, and Slims says that this will be the forth week Zeke will be allowed to stay in his house. Slim then gives Lyndon the day's work, and this includes a call from someone named Sissy, which seems to irritate Lyndon. Sissy is an old woman who sounds like Granny in those old Sylvester and Tweety cartoons. She lives by a major road, and is complaining that heavy traffic is disturbing her and shaking her house. Lyndon explains that beekeepers are driving in for pollination season, and we see some trucks drive by loaded with supers. There's little Lyndon can do about this, and he suggests she talk to Mayor Ditmuller. She too doesn't like Lyndon. Now we're in a farmer's field. The farmer tries to speak to a Hispanic migrant farm worker who is unloading some supers from his truck into the farmer's field so the bees can pollinate the crops. Unfortunately, the worker doesn't speak English. The farmer doesn't mind, as his labour is really cheap. The worker's supers have stickers on the side:
Peligro Abejas Vivas...
Apparently, it's a sort of warning sign about the bees. Anyway, he sets up these supers. We cut to the Dairy Castle where Audrey is working. Zeke walks in, sounding drunk, and buys some donuts. Some anti-Meglomart leaflets are on the walls. He and Audrey chat for a while, and then he leaves. Next, we see his truck driving down the road as night approaches. He's drinking, singing, and his driving is suffering. He leans over to grab a donut, when he loses control of his truck and bumps into one of the super trucks. It's just a minor fenderbender, but one of the supers is knocked over and more fake-looking bees swarm out. Zeke manages to get out of his truck and finds the Hispanic guy who's sitting at his wheel. Zeke yells at him. I noticed a decided lack of curse words that usually accompany drunken car accidents. The worker says nothing. Zeke asks for "insurenzo," but the worker simply drives off and leaves Zeke behind. Zeke yells in a drunken stupor. A single bee climbs into Zeke's bottle of beer. I wonder how much beer it would take to get an insect drunk. How would a drunken bee fly? I actually found a fruit fly in a glass of wine once and picked it out, and it seemed to fly normally, but I digress. Zeke mutters to himself about his truck being Ditmuller's truck, and he takes a swig from his beer bottle. He then clutches his throat, makes gurgling sounds, and falls. We're back at Sissy's house the next day. Lyndon is there with a radar gun, and he's caught a speeder. It's a young kid who claims to know Dylan and should thus be let off. Yeah, right. Lyndon writes him a ticket and gets a call from Slim. Zeke's truck was sighted along a road and Lyndon sets off to check it out. For a small town sheriff, he's pretty busy. The sheriff finds the truck, and a moment later finds Zeke dead by the train tracks. Lyndon calls for the doctor to come by and examine the body. What, no ultra-cool forensics team like on CSI? Oh yeah, this is a small town. They've probably got one doctor with a degree from a mail-correspondence university who also operates as dentist, nurse, chiropractor, and masseuse. We cut back to Lyndon's house later in the evening. He's sitting at the kitchen table with Cassidy, who is sad over Zeke's death. After a purely token comment about Zeke's passing, she breaks into lecture mode and starts talking all about the social order of bees. All the workers are female. Audrey enters, and asks why Lyndon is there. He says Cassidy asked him to baby-sit, even though Dylan agreed to baby-sit her. Audrey is going out for dinner. The daughter chatters right along with her entomological dissertation. The male bee's sole responsibility is to mate, after which he dies. Hmm, a life consisting entirely of sex... maybe these bees are on to something. Lyndon subtly attacks Audrey. Dylan runs by with his guitar, and just barely gets stopped by Lyndon. Dylan explains that he's going out with friends, and he agrees to be back by 11. I thought he was going to baby-sit Cassidy? Cassidy says that he wants to go out with a girl named Nadine, who we have yet to meet. Lyndon and Audrey argue over which time Dylan should return. Meanwhile, the super truck pulls up to a barn and stops. The migrant worker dozes off for the night. We cut to a diner, where Dylan sits alone at a table. Jarred, who is the speeding kid that got caught by Lyndon earlier, approaches and invites Dylan to go out with him and his friends. Dylan seems reluctant, until he sees Nadine ready to go with Jarred. So, Dylan disregards his curfew and goes out with them, not knowing how long he'll be. An instance of another body part superseding the brain in terms of decision-making. Sitting in the back of the truck the whole ride (wouldn't that be cold at night?), Dylan plays the guitar for Nadine, who sits with him. Jarred has ideas for what to do. They pull up to the super truck, and steal a super. Dylan and Nadine object to this, but they don't put up much resistance against Jarred's troublemaking. They drive off with the super. If I were there, I would refuse to sit near it, but the bees seem quiescent. Back at Lyndon's house, we see him slouching on the couch, asleep in front of the television. Audrey arrives home from her date, and puts a blanket on her ex-husband. The gang of youths drive into someone's farm, entering through a gate that just happened to be unlocked. It's 11:30, and Dylan and Nadine are worried, but they go along with everything. They drive up to a stable or something similar. Dylan and Nadine regret being here. Jarred looks really excited, so he must be planning something really sick. What is this dastardly prank? They kick the super off the truck, and it breaks open. Those bad CG bees pour out, and the kids drive away. That's it? That's a pretty stupid thing to do, really. I wouldn't have derived any entertainment from that, even if I were sixteen. Really late, Dylan sneaks back home and tries to creep upstairs past his sleeping father. Unfortunately, Lyndon wakes up and catches him. Dylan apologizes, but Lyndon doesn't seem to mind. The next day, Lyndon and Slim are at the stable where the bees were released. Three cows are dead, stung to death by bees. Slim tries to be smart by suggesting this is the work of some pranksters. Finally, Slim slowly gets around to reporting that Zeke the farmer was poisoned, which stuns Lyndon, not typically dealing with murder in such a small town. Back at the restaurant, Jarred appears and buzzes (har har, get it? Buzz?) Dylan's table. Jarred advises Dylan to keep quiet about their bee escapade. If you want to keep it a secret, why would you invite the son of the town's sheriff along with you?! Dylan agrees. Now we're at a makeshift morgue somewhere in town. The doctor looks over Zeke's corpse, which lies on a table all pale and dead looking. Lyndon watches, looking mildly disgusted. The doctor notes some discolouration on Zeke's neck, and begins to try and open Zeke's mouth. He pauses, and hands Lyndon a pot to vomit in should the need arise. The doctor then pries Zeke's mouth open off-camera, though we are treated to some gross sound effects that indicate the doc may be using an inordinate amount of force in opening the mouth. You know, crunching and cracking sound effects. Are we trying to break his jaw off or what? The doc spots something inside Zeke's mouth, and retrieves a dead bee. Lyndon doesn't want to be near it, but the doctor assures him that bees can't sting more than once. The doctor then says that the bee must have stung two or three times, thus contradicting what he said 3 seconds earlier. The doc speaks about the rarity of bee-caused death, but then apologizes to Lyndon about bringing the topic up, what with Lyndon's family history. The doctor then recommends that a forensic entomologist be brought in, and he even knows a good one who just happens to live nearby, a lady named Riley Muir (Fiona Loewi). Lyndon then barfs. Gee, I guess forensic entomology is more sickening a thought than having to watch a dead guy's jaw get ripped off. We cut to Riley's house. Lyndon pulls up in his car and as he's approaching the front door, he hears five loud screams coming from inside the house. Thinking she's in trouble, Lyndon bursts in, and finds Riley sitting by the fridge, stinging her thigh with a bee. I've been stung by bees, and they don't hurt enough to warrant five top-of-the-lung screams! We get a really gooey close up of a bee's sting embedded in her skin, and the bee ripping its organs out as it crawls away. I was eating yoghurt at the time, and this scene really made it go down easy :-p Anyway, they introduce themselves. We learn that she's divorced, and he tells her that he's separated. Ahh, maybe my prediction will be wrong... Riley explains that she has MS, and that bee venom is an unorthodox treatment that makes her feel better by boosting her immune system. Now, I checked this out, and this is true. However, is boosting your immune system the answer? As far as I know, MS is caused by a dysfunctional or overzealous immune system. Never mind. Lyndon gives her the dead bee found in Zeke's throat, and she looks at it under a microscope. She looks surprised by what she sees, and asks if Zeke has been out of the country, in South America or thereabouts. Lyndon replies no, and Riley says that this is a Brazilian bee, commonly referred to as a killer bee. He notes how farfetched this all sounds. I couldn't agree more. Riley says that killer bees already exist in the United States, only usually not in Washington State, which is too far north for them to survive. Lyndon tells her about the three dead cows found this morning, and she's alarmed. We learn here that Fiona Loewi is a mediocre actress, but she's pretty good looking, so I forgive her ;-) Actually, it's not all her fault; she has been given the movie's most atrocious lines, which I will outline later. So, Riley and Lyndon head off to examine the dead cows. After looking them over, Riley believes Sumas has a killer bee problem. Lyndon, Slim, and the doctor agree not to tell anyone about it, to prevent a panic. The doc looks Riley over, and says she doesn't look too good, and indeed, she looks a little light-headed. The doc thinks her "blood sugar" may be low. WTF, is she diabetic too? MS has no relation to the operation of the pancreas! Maybe this doctor is a doctor of veterinary medicine. He suggests Lyndon take her to get something to eat, and he does so. At the diner, she retells the killer bee story: aggressive bees brought over to Brazil from Africa, bred with native European honeybees to try and increase pollination, the bees accidentally released, the bees spreading through South America uncontrollably and so on. Their sting is no different from that of a gentler European bee, but they are more aggressive and tend to attack in swarms. She then tries to theorize how they got here, perhaps brought in one of the super trucks passing through, but she can't get very far: "It's difficult to read their little passports, and they're not very good at getting them stamped."Cringe city, that line is. Lyndon laughs (and it has to be for politeness' sake only). She refers to them as AK Bees, short for African Killer Bees. This isn't what they are officially called. They are officially called Africanized Bees, but never mind. Just then, Audrey and an unidentified man show up at Lyndon's table. The two are surprised to see each other, and Audrey asks who Lyndon is with. He looks embarrassed, as if he's been caught for something he shouldn't have been doing. Excuse me, but who is that man Audrey is with? Lyndon is working with Riley, and Audrey is actually dating! The scriptwriter must be a man-hating woman. We cut to a barn somewhere. Lyndon, Slim, and Riley are there talking to some farmers about the bee problem. They don't want the farmers to open their supers for a week, until the authorities can find out whether or not Sumas is infested with killer bees. The farmers, of course, resist, saying they need their crops to be pollinated before the super trucks pull out and take their bees with them. Riley tries to make her case, but the farmers have already made up their minds: "I would rather sleep out in the pasture and pick corn out of horse droppings."Again, an irritating sanitized language is being used. Horse droppings? The farmers leave, unconvinced. The next day, down by Sissy's house, Lyndon issues yet another speeding ticket to Jarred, and this time asks if Jarred knows anything about the prank he pulled. Jarred lies and says he knows nothing, though he will ask around. His lie is so transparent, Lyndon has to know. Mayor Ditmuller enters the sheriff's office and asks Lyndon to keep quiet about the killer bee thing to avoid a panic and to appease the Meglomart people who don't want to see bad PR. Then a farmer enters, looking alarmed, claiming that killer bees are attacking people in the street. Everyone runs out to see, but it was a trick. The farmer and some others laugh at Lyndon, and Ditmuller is not impressed. At the diner, Dylan is teaching Nadine some basic guitar chords. Just then, Jarred and some friends buzz (literally) the table, with Jarred making really bad bee puns. "You know, I think it's awful how your father's beeeeeeing treated!"Oh, let me write that gem down. Who talks like this? Even 16 year olds don't say crap like this! Nadine defends Dylan, but Jarred changes the subject and invites her to go out with him and his friends this weekend. Not liking the sounds of this, Dylan not-to-subtly asserts his presence, and he is invited as well. We are forced to endure another bee pun before Jarred leaves. He's going to have to die an awful death. We cut to Riley's house. She's cooking dinner for her and Lyndon, if only in the microwave. She and Lyndon chat about how much the farmers dislike him and how Lyndon is only doing his job when he's kicking them out of their houses. Yeah, Nazis said the same thing at Nuremberg, and they were still executed. She talks about her illness a little bit. It attacks her with fatigue and tremors, and she says there's no cure, only treatments. She's tried everything, and is now sticking with bees. Lyndon then has to go home, and after he's gone, Riley gazes with a lovey-dovey sort of look all over her face. The next day, Lyndon and Riley are pulling super trucks off the road and examining the bees. Lyndon talks to one driver, a gruff looking guy with a beard. He tells the driver about the killer bees, and the driver can't believe it. "Oh yeah, I saw that movie on late night TV, Attack of the... no, maybe it wasn't bees, it was piranhas! A real B-movie!"Hey, what's wrong with B-movies?! This movie is on the verge of making fun of itself. Just then, Riley suffers a tremor or something, and Lyndon helps her stand up. At that exact moment, Dylan blows by on his bicycle, seeing them close together and jumping to the wrong conclusion about the two of them. Lyndon shouts for Dylan, but he just keeps riding away. The movie is making this thing out to be a problem. Why? I guess it is a problem. Lyndon drives home, and finds his son playing music with his band. Lyndon, being the father, ruins the meeting and probably embarrasses Dylan by trying a bit too hard to be cool with the other teens. Now alone, Dylan asks Lyndon if Riley is his girlfriend. He gives a non-committal answer, and tries to explain that nothing lasts forever, even marriages. Dylan seems disappointed in his dad. I suppose that these kinds of scenes, the ones that aren't relevant to the killer bees, are included to try and add legitimacy to an otherwise silly movie, but these scenes only serve to inflate the movie to an unnecessary length. Then again, this is a TV movie so I guess they have a certain block of time to fill. I don't know. In another example of filler, Lyndon walks Riley to her front door in the evening. She thanks him for helping her earlier with her tremor, and they kiss. Riley asks if Lyndon is still in love with his wife, but he doesn't know. He leaves. I'm rapidly getting tired of this movie. Are we gonna see killer bees or not?! My question is quickly answered in the next scene. A farmer (the one who pulled that little prank on Lyndon) is driving his tractor near his supers, which are still closed. He stops and climbs out of the tractor to open them. The bees quickly swarm, and chase the farmer into the field. Wait a minute, opening the super is enough to disturb and set the bees off? Those kids stole a super and drove it down a road in a truck for at least a half hour, and the bees did nothing there. WTF? He runs and screams, and many thousands of bees follow him. It certainly looks like there are way too many of them following him. They fly in nice, parallel paths with none of the signs of errata that typify real insect flight. That little detail might have blown this movie's budget. Back at Lyndon's house, Audrey confronts Lyndon and asks if he and Riley are seeing each other. She also wonders if he's getting a little too involved in this killer bee business. He gives non-committal answers before getting a call from Sissy again. Damn, she's annoying. However, this call is different. We cut to Sissy's house. She's in a stretcher, and some firemen are around. Sissy has had a heart attack. I don't see the paramedics around; do the firemen do that work in this town? Lyndon finds a bee sting on her ankle, and it turns out that Sissy is allergic to bee stings, just like Lyndon's dad, and Lyndon suspects the killer bees have struck again. Next, Mayor Ditmuller meets with Lyndon and Riley. They report that Sumas may have a killer bee problem, but the data is still a tad inconclusive. Ditmuller is overly eager to close the investigation, and he starts getting mad. They admit that Sissy was actually stung by a single European bee and that she was simply allergic, but Lyndon thinks that making snap judgements about this situation is a little premature. Ditmuller responds: "Your sheriff's career is premature if you don't stop this!"I know you are, but what am I?! Who the hell wrote this, a ten year old? Ditmuller is sure there are no killer bees in town. Why doesn't Lyndon bypass the obviously evil mayor and go to a higher authority, like state officials. Geez! Jarred drives up to Lyndon's house to see if Dylan is home. Unfortunately for him, he bumps into Lyndon first, and Lyndon asks Jarred to report to the sheriff's office tomorrow to report on what he's learned about the cow-killing incident. Jarred reluctantly agrees and drives off. Dylan then comes out of the house and spots Jarred driving away. He's a bit mad because he was planning to go out with Jarred and some of his friends, but Lyndon asks Dylan to go and run a few errands with him. Next, we see Dylan driving the car with Lyndon in the passenger seat. Dylan doesn't have a learner's permit yet. Do I smell some law-enforcement corruption here? Lyndon says that Jarred is a bad influence, and Dylan agrees that he's a bit of a jerk. They then chat a bit about the bees, and they drive past some supers by the side of the road. This scene is unnecessary. Next we find Jarred causing more trouble. He's in the field of the farmer we saw get chased by the killer bees a few scenes back. Jarred is stealing a few heads of corn from the field. This is such a hick "crime"! Ooooooh, Jarred's a real badass! Jarred then finds a tractor, and gets excited. Yeah, the prospect of a ten-mile an hour joyride really gets me going too. He climbs in and drives it around. With a big stupid grin all over his face, he makes a beeline (har har) for the supers, and slowly (perhaps deliberately) drives into them, unleashing yet more killer bees. They start swarming around Jarred, and he panics. He jumps out of the tractor, runs and shouts for help, and gets chased by bees. The bees travel in a tight flock. Is that even possible? Jarred finds the dead farmer in the field, and screams some more. He runs deep into the field, running between tall corn plants. The bees follow in tight formation, apparently following the disturbance in the corn. These bees must hold a grudge against Jarred. I'm just glad he's going to die, he's a little buggar. The bees fly by the camera and sound just like race cars flashing by. If you've ever seen The Matrix Revolutions, the bees fly like the sentinels invading Zion. So fake. Now it's nighttime. Lyndon drives Dylan home. Dylan confesses to what he and his friends did with the super. Lyndon calls Slim to look for Jarred, despite the fact that his parents haven't seen him all afternoon. The next morning, we see Ditmuller and Lyndon supervising the evacuation of Zeke's house. Lyndon then gets a call over the radio to find a super truck with Mexican plates. I guess the owner is an illegal alien or something. Lyndon leaves against Ditmuller's wishes. He drives. The weather seems to have quickly changed from sunny to foggy and overcast. He finds and then chases the Mexican super truck, which speeds away from Lyndon. With sirens blaring, the chase ensues. Trying to add excitement to this movie now, I guess. The truck swerves a little bit, and Lyndon suspects this guy isn't here legally. Some of the supers fall out of the truck and break open. Finally, the truck crashes off the road and we lose sight of it in the fog. Lyndon drives around for a little bit before finding the truck tipped on its side off the road. I guess the fog was used to hide a car crash that this movie couldn't afford. He calls for an ambulance, but the bees began swarming around the truck before flying off. Lyndon locks himself into his truck as the bees fly past him. So once again, Lyndon reports what happened to Ditmuller, and Ditmuller is again sceptical. Lyndon tries to get him to cancel the Honey Festival until the bee problem is under control, but Ditmuller won't because of the Meglomart people who are coming in person to see the festival. Lyndon leaves the office with extreme prejudice. Back at Lyndon's house, Lyndon forbids his family from leaving to see the festival because of all of the bees. Dylan is not there, however. He's down at the lake with Nadine, so Lyndon leaves to find him. Dylan and Nadine sit together at the calm lake, a very serene looking place. A lone fisherman wades out of the small lake. Dylan and Nadine huddle together, and are just about to kiss when the killer bees appear and accost the fisherman. Since when do bees leave their hive unprovoked and attack random people? This movie is driving me nuts!! They kill the fisherman, and the two teens run to a tent that just happens to be set up there. How convenient! They seal themselves in and Nadine tries to yell at the bees. Do bees even have ears? The bees cover the tent. If the bees aren't computer generated, then they are round pancake-like props that are supposed to be big agglomerations of bees caked on to the tent. Really awful effects. The bees start getting inside the tent, and we get a few close-ups of real bees crawling around. Lyndon arrives, and finds the dead fisherman. Then he hears screams coming from the tent, which is surrounded with a cloud of bees. He shouts for them to remain calm and jumps back into his car, where he promptly honks his horn. The bees then fly away, over the lake and out of sight. He says everything is okay, and the two victims slowly leave their tent. Many dead bees (?) litter the ground and the tent. Lyndon helps them back to the car, and they seem sort of nonchalant about the dead guy they pass. Armed with testimony from two bee-attack survivors, Lyndon tries to get through to Mayor Ditmuller. However, this guy is still unconvinced and points out that the lake is in another county and is therefore not Lyndon's responsibility. Good gravy, who voted this slimeball into office?! He's clearly not doing what the people want by letting Meglomart into the town. Lyndon resigns in protest. "You can take my badge, Ditmuller, just like you took my farm, but you cannot stop me from warning these people about these bees!"I was laughing to myself at this point. I'm not sure why, I just think this line is funny. Anyhoo, Lyndon turns in his gun and his badge and accuses Ditmuller of selling out to Meglomart. No, you think so?! Lyndon storms out. Lyndon goes about the war against the bees alone. Dylan and Audrey distribute warning fliers to people in the diner and post them through town. We cut to Lyndon's house, where the family and Riley make new fliers at the kitchen table. Slim enters - he's the new sheriff now. He says they have to stay inside during the festival to avoid scaring the Meglomart people. It's Ditmuller's order. Lyndon reluctantly agrees (?!) and escorts Slim out. Inside, Riley and Audrey talk. Riley thinks Lyndon still loves Audrey. Then she leaves. Just forget this romance subplot and focus on the damn bees! More super trucks drive into Sumas, passing Sissy's house. Again, she complains to Lyndon about the noise and vibrations the trucks make, and he says he can't do anything because he's not the sheriff anymore. She takes the law into her own hands, with her trusty shotgun. You go girl! Lyndon decides to check on this clearly unstable woman. She loads the shotgun. For an unknown reason, a large cloud of the killer bees descends on her house. They cover the walls and the windows of the house, presumably trying to get inside. She looks afraid, and spots a vent in the wall. She says aloud that they could come in the vent, so she closes it. She glances back at the window, and then spots the fireplace. She again narrates her thought processes as she tries to close the flue over the fireplace but pauses part way through, whimpering in fear and switching on a lamp to fight the darkness that came when the bees covered up the windows. Crying, she grabs her gun and calls out for help. It's the boy who cried wolf... the woman who cried bees... whatever. We see an electrical box crawling with bees, and some sparks shooting out from this box. The lights in the house go out. The bees have cut the power! Sissy shoots the window, and the bees swarm in and quickly cover everything, including Sissy, who now lies dead on the ground. Later, Lyndon arrives at Sissy's house, but finds some big hives being built on the walls and in corners, dripping honey and slime all over the place. Most of the bees are gone, but a few still crawl around. He finds Sissy's body, and quickly leaves. He doesn't go to the police, he goes to Riley, and reports what he has seen. Riley, being the bee expert, says that the bees are gone because either the queen didn't like the house (I guess the decor was a little stale) or the house was too small for the entire swarm to live in comfortably. Fearing the second reason is the correct one, they realize the swarm must be very big and they have to find it before it kills more people. Alarmed, Lyndon asks if there is some way to kill the bees, but Riley gives a negative reply. Then Riley comes up with this brilliant statement: "Unfortunately, there isn't a can of bug spray big enough!"Uh, is this really an appropriate time for poorly conceived attempts at humour? No matter, Riley says that large gatherings of people with food and making noise will only serve to attract the swarm. I was under the impression that bees kept to themselves and were oblivious to noises and groups that didn't directly threaten the hive. The dynamic duo drives off, heading to the festival to warn everybody. During the trip, they both look agitated. Lyndon remains hopeful that disaster can be averted, but not Riley: Lyndon: "Maybe, if we're lucky, that swarm will just fly right over."Oh, just shut up! What the hell does that mean?! They continue to drive in the sheriff's truck. Why didn't they take that away from Lyndon? The whole town is gathering at this Honey Festival. The kiddies are playing and having fun, some Meglomart people are noodling around, and Mayor Ditmuller is there, chatting it up with a young Meglomart woman. There are even TV people there to cover the festival. There is also an unacceptable amount of bad honeybee costumes present at the festival. An announcement issues from the main stage. This is the debut of that band we've heard about earlier in the film, the one that Dylan is in. It's called "Skyrider", and as it turns out, Dylan is the lead guitar/vocal. Audrey and Cassidy are there, despite Lyndon's order to stay put, waiting for Lyndon to show up. I guess they still don't take these bees seriously, even Dylan, who was attacked by them! No no, this movie needs a musical portion to pad it out further, so we get to listen to Skyrider perform. It's clearly not Dylan singing. A totally different voice is heard, and it doesn't even sound like music played at an outdoor venue. It sounds like a studio recording. Anyway, the song is called "Skyrider". Odd, you don't encounter too many bands that write songs about themselves. It's typical modern rock music, the sort of homogenous crap that all sounds the same to me. While they sing, Dylan glances over at Nadine a lot. Ditmuller dances with the Meglomart lady. We get to hear this for 65 seconds. Lyndon calls Slim from his truck. Slim asks for the truck back, but Lyndon quickly warns Slim about the bees. Sure enough, a huge swarm of them is on their way, and Slim looks up at them, terrified. He runs to the stage, tripping and shouting the whole way, before taking the microphone from the band (thank God.) He asks everyone to remain calm and leave the grounds immediately. The swarm should be easily visible to everyone by now, but it's apparently not. They ask him why they should leave, and Slim points to the sky behind him. The bees are coming in a huge cloud. People start screaming and running, and the whole situation quickly degrades into a panic. The bees start stinging people, and chaos ensues. Slim tries to maintain order but fails miserably, getting trampled on by the screaming mob. We see lots of running feet and falling people, and bad CG bees. This lasts for 54 seconds. During this collection of hectic scenes, we see a brief shot of the fairgrounds clearing out, and a portly woman is very calmly walking from left to right across the screen amid the small crowd of running and screaming people, standing out like a sore thumb. She really ruins the effect. I laughed at her. Ditmuller jumps into his car and locks the doors. People crowd around, trying to get in, hammering on the windows and such. Naturally, being evil, Ditmuller honks his horn at them and plows through, driving off. Bees cover his windows, and indeed, a small swarm of bees follow his car. At least these bees have a sense of justice. Ditmuller drives into the side of a building by accident, and in the collision knocks open the air vents in the dashboard. Immediately, bees start pouring into the car. These bees were very poorly rendered, appearing as small yellowy ellipsoids, some very stationary, and the others moving in neat lines. Ditmuller screams and thrashes about, and dies. He had to die a horrible death. Lyndon and Riley are still on their way, and approaching a set of train tracks that cross the road. However, a train is bearing down on them. Riley points out that, although she has a terminal disease and doesn't mind dying, Lyndon should think twice about trying to beat the train. MS is not considered a terminal disease. I think some basic research is in order for this movie. In a remarkably pointless and boring scene, Lyndon gets the car over the tracks. We never see the train and the car in the same shot. They arrive at the fairground, only to find it deserted. Signs of the chaos are everywhere. The band sucked, but they weren't that bad! Lyndon calls out for Slim, and sure enough, the new sheriff pops up from between a few parked cars. He's been stung; his right cheek is swollen. He's trying to be like Marlon Brando, stuffing cotton in his face. He admits that he couldn't control the crowd and hid in the cars until the bees were gone. Lyndon takes charge, being a natural leader (I guess), and he and Riley check out the "Young Agrarians Hall". Peeking through a window, they see maybe a dozen people huddled inside, including Audrey and Cassidy. Above them, covering the ceiling and rafters, are millions and millions of bees, milling around, building a new hive. They seem calm now, but Riley says if they're disturbed in the slightest way, they will swarm again and sting anything that moves. Dylan shows up. He too was hiding outside and escaped the onslaught. He confesses to Lyndon that he forced Audrey to bring him to the festival so he could play, and he's very sorry. He's sixteen, staying out very late, and he needed mommy to take him to the Honey Festival? Am I detecting plot holes here? Dylan blames himself for all of this, but Lyndon assures him it wasn't his fault. Let's all just blame Jarred. They look in at the hive. Audrey and Cassidy are scared, and they make sure to say that they are, for our benefit. We need to know the thought processes of the characters, be it Lyndon who misses his farmhouse, Sissy who has to close the flue, or Audrey who is frightened. Riley suggests filling the hall with that smoke stuff that beekeepers use to pacify the bees and hustle everyone out. Slim rushes off to get as much beekeeping equipment as he can, while Riley volunteers to go. She points out that repeatedly stinging herself with bee venom has built up an internal immunity, which can protect her. What, against ten million angry bees? Instead of dying in five seconds, she'll die in fifteen seconds. We see a shot of real bees crawling over a hive, dripping slime (honey, maybe?) to remind us of what we're facing. Riley suits up to go in. She then suffers a minor tremor, but she's determined to go in, noting that she has a disease anyway. She pulls that beekeeper netting over her head and enters with a smoke making thingy in her hand. She looks around with a flashlight, walking slowly and carefully. The people stuck there are terrified. We see a shot of the ceiling with Riley staring up at the bees. The spot of illumination made by the flashlight is a really bad computer effect. Anyway, Riley whispers to the hostages (if you can call them that) to slowly head out in twos and threes. Of course, everyone panics and stampedes out the door, trampling over Riley, and the bees descend, stinging Riley. The remaining hostages pile into a parked SUV that just happens to be in there with them. First a tent, now a car? I'm guessing a meteor will suddenly come down and kill all the bees. Meanwhile, Riley panics and pulls off her netting, and we watch her get stung by computer-generated bees. She falls to the ground. Lyndon, Slim, and Dylan are still outside, and hear the car horn honking. They're relieved momentarily, until they realize the car is honking S.O.S. in Morse code. Lyndon peers in and sees Riley lying by the car, and he has to do something. Slim, being a bit of a dullard, childishly suggests that if they had a flamethrower, they could kill the bees really quickly. However, Lyndon likes the idea. Inside the SUV, Audrey and everyone else looks around for the keys. In full beekeeper gear, Lyndon is ready to enter despite his fear of bees. He goes in, swatting at a few stray bees that come too close to him. He grabs a can of gasoline and starts dumping it all over the floor. The bees descend, perhaps smelling that something is afoot, and Lyndon grabs Riley. He then takes some matches. "Time to burn."From small town sheriff to action-hero! Cue some quietly heroic action music. He lights the gasoline and the hall goes up in flames. Maybe you should have waited until Audrey found the keys! The bees don't swarm, but continue to crawl around, making rodent-like screaming sounds. Slim and Dylan watch from outside, but then run from the window at the last minute. The SUV bursts through the wall in a big explosion of fire. This must be where the movie's budget went! Slim and Dylan watch it drive off. After all this exciting climax stuff, the fire department shows up to put the fires out. The town doctor calls Lyndon over to Riley's stretcher. She looks tired and stung, but okay. Lyndon explains that he left the keys to the SUV in the visor, and that they found them in the nick of time. WTF, was that Lyndon's SUV in the building? This is never made clear, and he's never seen driving it at all in this film. ARRGGGHHH!! Riley is hopeful she was stung so many times that the MS will be in remission. She then asks Cassidy to watch over her supers while she's in the hospital, and Cassidy is eager to do so. Riley is taken into an ambulance and driven off. Slim appears, reporting happily that the Meglomart people were sufficiently frightened by all this insect activity to stop the development of their store and leave the town. Lyndon and co. are happy. And so, with everything neat and tidy (in a manner of speaking), we see Lyndon and Dylan playing catch at the old farmhouse, now looking restored. OH NO!! The movie is starting over again!! Of course, we get the obligatory ominous ending scene: Dylan: "Think we've seen the last of those bees?"The twist? In the distance, we see a large tornado. Oh, it's supposed to be funny. Maybe if it were cloudy out, I'd be laughing. I've never seen a tornado in a cloudless sky. That's the end. There aren't even end credits, at least not on my copy. I don't know the names of the actors for half of the characters in this movie, thanks to this lack of information.
THE END!!!
What a stinker! You take a marginally good idea (killer bees are always cool), stuff in some useless subplots and padding to make it fit a two-hour block of time, and then use crappy digital effects to try and fool everyone into thinking that we are really seeing bees. Throw in a crappy writer and cardboard acting, Canadian influence, and you have Killer Bees. The acting was bad. C. Thomas Howell was okay, I guess (I'm not a professional critic or an acting scholar), but all of the characters were really cookie-cutter characters that could be transposed from one movie to another. Fiona Loewi wasn't really good, even though I liked her in Top of the Food Chain, another Canadian film. She had the worst lines I've ever heard in a recent TV movie. Jarred also had bad lines. Who uses bad puns like that in everyday language? They're so old, no one even bothers to think of them to say. Some of the lines even have bad grammar or sound really childish. I wasn't surprised to find the anti big-store message in this film, probably pointed at Wal-Mart more than any other big chain of stores. I guess it'll be a cliché soon enough. Overall, this movie was a really bad TV movie, good for pointless excitement but falling apart upon close examination and involvement. It bursts with unnecessary sap and has some unresolved storylines at the end. I considered if this was some sort of satire, the same way Monster A-Go Go is supposedly a satire, but I decided against that. This movie isn't even funny in the least, and really didn't strike me as a satire. I have a feeling the screenwriter couldn't decide what she wanted, so the movie is not entirely serious but can't be called satirical either. Like many such movies, if you just have it on without really watching it, you'll be okay when it's all over. I was asking myself questions: What was the point of introducing that whole Lyndon-Riley romance thingy, if we don't see her after the climax? Did Lyndon and Audrey get back together? What about Dylan and Nadine? We'll never know, and that's fine with me. For me, it was all about the bees. July 16, 2004 Back to main site? |
