Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

VividSimon Simply Perfect

Paynbob It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Paul Andrews The Savage Bees is set in Louisiana & starts as a banana boat from Brazil sails into freighter about twenty miles off the coast of New Orleans, the banana boat is completely deserted & her crew are nowhere to be found. Arriving home Sheriff Donald McKew (Ben Johnson) is shocked to see his pet Dog dead, McKew takes the Dog to the nearest hospital & manages to convince assistant medical examiner Dr. Jeff DuRand (Michael parks) to perform an autopsy which he does & discovers that the Dog was killed by Bee stings. A body is found floating in the water & he too was killed by Bee stings, entomologist Jaennie Devereaux (Gretchen Corbett) confirms that the Bees in question are killer African Bees that presumably reached the US by being on the Brazillian banana boat. With Mardi Gras in full swing the city of New Orleans faces a potential disaster & it's up to a few city officials to come up with a plan to stop the Bees & prevent a massacre...This made for US telly killer Bee flick originally aired at the end of November in 1976 & has been released on home video a few times since, produced & directed by Bruce Geller who is credited as the 'Creator' of the original Mission: Impossible TV series & was later killed in a plane crash in 1978 this killer animal/insect film was probably made after the huge success of Jaws (1975) the previous year & just about everyone in Hollywood jumped on the killer animal bandwagon usually with less than impressive results. Here The Savage Bees is watchable enough I suppose but it's so talky at times that I found myself getting bored with it, the Bee attack scenes are tame & uninspired although the ending is alright if only for it's outright silliness. I mean a single cop car can clear the whole of New Orleans by itself broadcasting from just one loudspeaker? Also if the Bees hate loud noises & the cop actually tells people to turn machinery off & be quiet because the Bees will attack them why is he shouting out warnings at the top of his voice from a loudspeaker no more than a few feet from the swarm of Bees? The majority of The Savage Bees is taken up by scenes of various city officials talking about the killer Bee threat & what to do about it, that's fine in an exposition sort of way but it does get dull after a while. At almost 90 odd minutes long The Savage Bees could have used five or tens minutes edited out to speed things up a bit, overall a pretty forgettable entry in the killer Bee sub-genre.There are a few attack scenes but nothing special, expert Bee handlers made sure things were done safely on set as real Bees with real stingers were used. To be honest I don't think Bees make the best killer creature for films like this, great big Sharks or Snakes or even Spiders are much better as Bees just sort of buzz around & not much else. Even though the film takes place during the Mardi Gras this angle is totally wasted, the obligatory uncaring politician as seen in jaws who is only interested in money is also present but again goes nowhere.Filmed in Louisiana & the Superdome in New Orleans where the improbable climax takes place. I can't believe you drop the temperature in a huge football stadium such as the Superdome by over 15 degrees in a matter of minutes, can you? The acting is standard fare, no-one stands out but it'll do. A young Michael Parks stars & he has had a bit of a comeback lately with Quentin Tarantino casting him in several of his films.The Savage Bees is standard made for telly killer creature feature stuff, it's just about watchable if your absolutely desperate for a killer Bee flick but that's the best I can say for it. Followed by the made for telly sequel Terror Out of the Sky (1978).

Sturgeon54 This is not just another cheapy television movie from the 1970s, but actually an intelligent, scary horror film worth seeing, something along the lines of "Kingdom of the Spiders" or "Phase IV" - 2 other very good underrated insect attack movies. There is some good location filming of New Orleans and the swamps of Southern Louisiana, and veteran Ben Johnson is solid in the lead role of the local sheriff. Movies like this need to know how to push the right buttons, and this one does, containing one scene with a scientist in a protective suit poking a giant beehive that really impressed me with how skillfully it was set up. This ain't Shakespeare, but it is the finest quality you will find for this genre.

jnsavage3 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.

DavidAndBeecher 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.