Chris M
Vicki Robbins is a famous singer, forced to take a holiday to a small island in Ireland. Because apparently passing out from exhaustion equals a nervous breakdown for women in the 1960s. But someone on the island is using breeding to turn honey bees into killer bees, somehow. First, the sexism in this is horrible, even for the 1960s. The woman needed sleep, it's not a NERVOUS BREAKDOWN because she passed out from not sleeping, THE FUCK! The way the killer bees are created really makes no sense. Finally, the motive of the villain to create killer bees? Just to do it before the neighbor does it. Basically, no reason. Director Freddie Francis must be one of the future founders of the "Rubber" School of No-Reason Film Making. There are some good acting and the ever most polite baddie you see. I'd call it a British stereotype if the movie wasn't British to begin with. Not a complete waste and might have inspired better killer bee movies like "Swarm".
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
10/04/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Based on H.F. Heard's 1941 novel A Taste for Honey, this Freddie Francis film — look for an entire week of UK science fiction and horror next week — this movie predates the worries of the 70s killer bees by nearly ten years.
You know, singers don't just get exhausted today and have to escape from reality. They used to in 1966, Vicki Robbins (Suzanna Leigh, Lust for a Vampire, Son of Dracula) collapses on television and has to go to Seagull Island to get her life back together. Look for a young Ron Wood in the opening number.
Originally adapted from Heard's novel by Robert Bloch, director Freddie Francis and writer Anthony Marriott worked to improve said script and ended up with a movie that nobody seemed to like. Maybe it's because there's no Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee, as audiences expected them in almost every horror movie.
Bloch never saw the completed film, although he was a gentleman in how he felt about Francis, Marriott and Amicus, the studio who produced the film. He did say, however, that the movie "buzzed off into critical oblivion, unwept, unhonoured and unstung."
If you want to see a movie with plastic bees glued to the faces of thespians, by all means, this would be that film.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/06/23
Full Review
ashley h
The Deadly Bees is a disappointing film. It is about trouble that strikes when an exhausted pop singer, sent on a vacation to a farm, who realizes that the farm's owner grows deadly bees. Suzanna Leigh and Frank Finlay give terrible performances. The screenplay is badly written. Freddie Francis did a horrible job directing this movie. I was not impressed with this motion picture.
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
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Audience Member
You know the really negative British stereotype? Of the frilly, man-woman who likes to drink tea and has that horrible accent? Yeah. This movie is a personification of that. But it's a horror movie about killer bees. What a world we live in where this happened. There is one really awesome kill though, and the greenscreen bees might be charming to some of the cult devourers.
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
02/05/23
Full Review
Audience Member
If there was a low budget horror director to look out for in the sixties and seventies then Freddie Francis' name would probably come up. He directed the great Tales From the Crypt movie, Dr. Terror's House of Horrors and The Skull, but one of his most infamous films would probably be The Deadly Bees. What I mean by infamous is that it's definitely not a high-ranking work, but to be fair, it isn't altogether bad either. The acting is definitely dodgy at times and the script seems to be trying to hard to unveil a mystery with too much restraint, but the idea and the execution of it are done alright. It was featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, but I'm confused as to why. To me that show should be reserved for impenetrable films, and this one is definitely not that. It's not very good either, but it's at least watchable.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
01/26/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Painfully dull on its own, it's still one of the classier movies riffed on that great cult show, Mystery Science Theater 3000. MST3K ep. 905 is easily one of my top twenty favorite episodes, and I must give some credit to the movie for that.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/19/23
Full Review
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