[Inspector Abberline]

The Swarm 1978

I almost feel that I should defend the honour of The Swarm since it got such a beating when its was released, I'm not a fan of all these Golden Raspberry type Award's. And when The Sunday Times described The Swarm as "simply the worst film ever made" then I figure somebody needs to bee in its corner. Irwin Allen could never have known that the film would bomb tremendously at the cinema, nor would he have guessed it would of been as pillared as it was. Michael Caine has constantly cited it as his worst move,and he should know,considering some of the utter tosh he has made in his career,still he is not alone there is a tremendous amount of talent in the film.to many to list but its a disaster movies dream cast .I think its main problem is its to big for its own boots,to many big name actors,too much budget and very little in the way of tension,suspense or fear from its buzzing protagonists .Maybe bees are not scary enough,not even the African killer bees can elicit much in the way of scares ,mainly because whenever we see the critters on screen there either a mass of dots or big black rain cloud.Only when we see the results of a sting on a human do we get the frightening visage of a giant bee buzzing in front of his poisoned and deluded victim.hovering there waiting for him to open a jar of jam. You also get the feeling that some of the actors do not seem to be taking this very seriously,Katharine Ross as Helena Anderson looks like she is constantly about to burst into laughter,Richard Widmark as General Thaddeus Slater looks like he might shoot some of his fellow cast members if he was actually given a real gun and poor old Michael Caine as Dr. Bradford Crane looks like he has been tranquillized and just shuffles from one scene to another.Its really not that bad,total bollocks yes,,but fun bollocks,and to be honest its just as funny as the The Airplane spoofs.