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The Swarm (1978)

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79 comments in total

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10 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
To Bee Or Not To Bee..., 28 November 2000

Author: Uffe-13 from Storuman, Sweden

Highly enjoyable (and very expensive) flop from Irwin Allen, the Master of Disaster. Michael Caine, with help from a bunch of other famous actors, fight against a huge swarm of African killer bees and almost destroy the entire city of Houston in the progress. Try to get hold of the longer version (about half an hour longer than the original), which contain more drama and longer action scenes. Considered a turkey among most critics, but this film is far better than many recent box-office hits. Note that the local cinema is showing "The Towering Inferno".

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10 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
Great fun, depending on which version you see..., 25 March 2005

Author: Libretio

THE SWARM

Aspect ratio: 2.39:1 (Panavision)

Sound format: 4-track magnetic stereo

A swarm of African killer bees rampage across America's south-west before descending on Houston, destroying everything in their path.

Contrary to popular opinion, THE SWARM is not the worst movie ever made, and anyone who says otherwise clearly hasn't seen the collected works of Jesùs Franco, Andy Milligan or Woody Allen (just kidding!). Representing the last gasp of the disaster cycle inaugurated by Ross Hunter's big-time adaptation of Arthur Hailey's AIRPORT (1969) and further popularized by the likes of THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972) and THE TOWERING INFERNO (1974) - the latter a bona fide Hollywood classic - THE SWARM encapsulates director Irwin Allen's basic commercial ethos: Big stars, big set-pieces, and big drama.

Taking its cue from previous small-scale entries like THE DEADLY BEES (1966) and TERROR OUT OF THE SKY (1978), Allen's old-fashioned monster movie revels in the destruction of towns, trains, nuclear power plants and the reputations of numerous high-profile actors. However, Stirling Silliphant's script is so hokey, it's difficult to believe he wasn't poking inglorious fun at the entire project: Michael Caine is so obviously miscast (as a 'brilliant' entomologist), and so clearly contemptuous of the material, his expression never changes throughout the entire film, though co-star Richard Widmark gives it everything he's got as a gruff military type who's eager to quell the threat by bombing everything in sight. Henry Fonda rises above the fray as a dedicated immunologist, and Slim Pickens is quietly dignified as a bereaved father, while Olivia De Havilland forms the centerpiece of a gentle romantic subplot (she's courted by Fred MacMurray and Ben Johnson). Richard Chamberlain, Lee Grant, Jose Ferrer, Bradford Dillman and Patty Duke Astin are featured in supporting roles alongside leading lady Katharine Ross, who seems particularly embarrassed by her ridiculous dialogue (get a load of her hysterical reaction to the death of a sympathetic younger character - if you lean forward, you can almost *smell* the ham!).

The film exists in two separate versions: The 116 minute theatrical print, and an expanded 'director's cut' running 155 minutes which pads the narrative with pointless dialogue exchanges, turning a tightly constructed disaster thriller into an endless yak-fest. Stick with the original.

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8 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
Best Killer Bee disaster film EVER!, 17 August 2000

Author: jimmyshine from United States

All the people that knock this film forget the obvious - it wasn't meant to be seen on tv. I saw this film - repeatedly - on the big screen and at the drive-in. Of course it's silly; of course it's unbelievable - that's the point. But it works on the big screen, particularly at the drive-in, where the tinny sound coming over the speaker adds a haunting counterpoint to the professional gloss on the screen. Easy to laugh at on tv in the afternoon as an adult, but on the screen, in the dark, when you're only 10, this is creepy, not-to-be-taken-seriously, fun. Marvelously straight-faced, and all the more entertaining for it. Kids will love it.

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8 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Absurd, Long, Boring and Flawed Story With Awful Characters, 13 October 2006

Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

A swarm of African killer bees attacks an Air Force base in Texas, then the small town of Marysville and later Houston. A team of scientists, leaded by the arrogant Dr. Bradford Crane (Michael Caine), tries to find an antidote and an effective way of destroying the lethal swarm against the military command advice, that wants to restrain the area.

"The Swarm" is one of the most absurd, long, boring and flawed story with awful characters that I have ever seen. The annoying Dr. Crane, for example, is arrogant, does not show any education or respect for the others, takes very bad decisions, and hangs around with the gorgeous Capt. Helena Anderson, performed by Katharine Ross, instead of being in the base where he is in charge of the whole operation. The silly teenager Paul is responsible for the death of more than two hundred persons and is patronized by Crane and without any further consequences but his moralist death. General Thalius Slater, performed by Richard Widmark, behaves like a puppet in the hands of Crane and has terrible lines. And the senior triangle of love? What is the point? The train wagons exploding and on fire is one of the most ridiculous scenes I have ever seen. How could they explode and burn? It was imperative that the nuclear power plant should not shutdown, therefore why Dr. Hubbard did not ask the operators to wear protective clothing while working in the plant? How can Dr. Walter Krim, the man in charge of finding an antidote of the sting, be the subject of his experiment? The final solution with the tune of the alarm sound attracting the bees to the ocean completes this shameful flick that wastes an excellent cast. My vote is three.

Title (Brazil):"O Enxame" ("The Swarm")

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6 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
A Guilty Pleasure, 6 October 2003

Author: Theo Robertson from Isle Of Bute , Scotland

Yeah fair enough , this is reckoned to be the worst disaster movie ever . Agreed there`s some really terrible acting involved with Michael Caine either OTT or totally wooden from scene to scene with the kid playing Paul giving a " I`m really terrified because I`m waving my head from side to side and saying no, no , no an awful lot " acting style . That said I do have a soft spot for THE SWARM because it is rather enjoyable due to the lapses in logic and science , and who can fail to be emoured by the laughable dialogue like " We`ve been losing the war against the insects for 15 years but I`d never thought it`d be the bees - They`ve always been our friends " or " Has this nuclear power plant made any provisions against killer bees " ? Don`t take it so seriously and you might just enjoy it

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6 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Agreeable time-filler, but WAY overlong., 21 November 1999

Author: gridoon

"The Swarm" has its share of flaws, no doubt about that: it's overlong, it's filled with genre cliches (many veterans cast in pointless supporting roles, indifferent romances) and it's occasionally overacted, especially by Michael Caine, who has a role far below his abilities. However, those who are calling it "terrible" and "campy" are REALLY overdoing it. The special effects are actually FIRST-RATE and most of the attack sequences are utterly convincing. Don't judge the film on the basis of its bad reputation; watch it for yourself and you'll discover that, while it's not an "art" film, it's an agreeable way to kill two hours.

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4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
"Bees! Bees! They're all around us! Bees! Bees!", 15 October 2006

Author: moonspinner55 from redlands, ca

Killer bees attack residents in a small town preparing for a flower festival. Fred MacMurray BEGS Olivia de Havilland to marry him and she looks to the heavens with an empathic, "Oh, how lucky I am!" (they both perish.) When the train, packed full of stock characters, derailed, the theater audience I saw this with actually cheered; too bad producer Irwin Allen wasn't aboard. This film ranks right up there with Allen's "When Time Ran Out...", still to this day the reigning champ of bad cinema. The special effects are actually very good here, but the script is so lame and the direction so stilted that the results are not uneven so much as they are unintentionally funny. B-grade actors like Richard Chamberlain must've been mighty grateful for Irwin Allen's disaster films (and the chance to work in big-budget productions), but that's no excuse for Michael Caine's limp appearance. Had Mel Brooks put his name on it, "The Swarm" might have been the top comedy of its year. * from ****

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3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Once To The Well Too Much, Irwin, 16 August 1999
Author: Eric-62-2 from Morristown, NJ

Irwin Allen's first two disaster movies, "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno" worked as above average productions because there always seemed to be one foot in the ground of pseudo-reality that made you feel compelled by what you saw. But more importantly, Allen had competent directors like Ronald Neame and John Guillermin handling the actors and the end-result usually produced good performances, considering the material (especially Steve McQueen in "Inferno.") Unfortunately, with "The Swarm" Allen went to the well once too much and served up a more outlandish kind of disaster story, and to complicate matters further he took over the director's chores himself and boy does it show. There is literally no coherent story structure at all in this film, and the all-star cast is uniformly bad from top to bottom. What was Allen thinking with that pointless love-triangle plot involving the over-the-hill gang of Fred MacMurray, Ben Johnson and Olivia de Havilland? Did he really expect people to take seriously lines like "The bees have always been our friends!" or "Attention, a swarm of killer bees is coming this way!" This is the kind of movie that might have worked as a short, low-budget B/W flick in the 50s (okay, a "B" movie, no pun intended) but as a follow-up to solid efforts like "The Poseidon Adventure" and "The Towering Inferno" this film is only good from a silly camp standpoint.

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4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Don't you understand? The killer bees are coming!, 29 December 2002

Author: counterrevolutionary from Spokane, WA

Like many films in the "killer animal" subgenre, THE SWARM ignores many of the plain facts about its alleged subjects. For example, Africanized "killer" bees are no more venomous than ordinary (European) bees: they are more easily stirred up, remain angry longer, and attack in greater numbers; but one-on-one, a bee is a bee (tee-hee, tee-hee/and no one can talk to a bee but me--hmmm, I have an idea for a TV sitcom). Also, swarming bees, having no hive to defend, are actually quite docile.

Unlike most films in any genre, THE SWARM ignores one fact that *everyone in the entire world* knows: bees die when they sting. Of course, it pretty much has to ignore that fact, because it makes the events of the film completely impossible.

The fact that a bee's sting remains in the wound (continuing to pump venom) when the bee is dislodged is a brilliant adaptation: it permits a single bee to do much more damage than it would otherwise be able to. And the death of a single bee (or a dozen, or a hundred, or a thousand) is far better than permitting the hive to be destroyed or seriously damaged.

However, it also means that "going on offense" is a very poor survival strategy for a bee colony. What possible motive could a bee colony have for launching unprovoked attacks on humanity, when such an attack would be suicide for every bee which stung?

For most people, this hideous piece of moronitude is likely to be one of the least-annoying aspects of THE SWARM. Michael Caine's awful performance, the idiotic script, the embarrassment of the great Richard Widmark, the laughable special effects, and the horrible geriatric love triangle are even worse.

If you're an Ed Wood fan--if you can sit through *Battlefield Earth*--if *Can't Stop the Music* doesn't make you gouge your eyes out with your fingers--you may enjoy this film. Otherwise, flee from its presence as if your sanity depended upon it.

And remember: there is no *bee* in this room!

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5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Michael "Paycheck" Caine strikes again!, 6 February 2006

Author: bensonmum2 from Tennessee

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

As a point of reference, I don't rate every other movie I see a 1/10. Of the 1,005 movies I've bothered to rate over the past few years, I've only given 20 of them a 1/10. It takes a "special" movie can join the ranks of Prime Evil, The Creeping Terror, and Curse of the Swamp Creature. The Swarm is one of those "special" movies. Watching The Swarm is something of an endurance test. At one point, I felt like I had been sitting and watching for days. I checked the counter and discovered I had only seen 76 minutes – I still had another 80 minutes left to go.

So what went wrong? In a word - everything. As I've already indicated, The Swarm is dull and tedious. If I'm ever forced to watch this movie again, I can only hope it's the 116 minute version and not the 156 minute director's cut. In addition, the characters do and say the most unrealistic things. Take the movies supposed hero played by Michael Caine and the General played by Richard Widmark. Every conversation these two have is full of absolute nonsense and done in volumes usually reserved for football games. The fact that these two NEVER attempt to work together to accomplish anything is ridiculous. Or, take the fact that Caine's character, who has been appointed by the White House to head up the operation, spends more time tracking down a 10 year-old runaway than he does finding a solution to the bee problem. Unrealistic. The Swarm also features a couple of the most inane love story subplots I've seen. The first features Caine and Katharine Ross who never seem to get beyond admitting they "like" each other. How old are these people? 12? The second is the senior citizen love triangle that goes nowhere and has no real purpose. It's like watching a bad episode of "The Love Boat". Finally, some of the acting is downright atrocious. Caine and Ross are good actors when given decent material. But in The Swarm, Caine appears to be in it solely for the paycheck and Ross acts as if she realizes how bad it is and just wants out.

Picking the negatives out of The Swarm is like shooting fish in a barrel – it's impossible to miss. And I haven't even discussed the plot – killer African bees threaten the Southwest. Not a bad idea, but the execution in The Swarm is the worst.

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