Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Keeley Coleman The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Matylda Swan It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

connorbbalboa I have not seen many films by Irwin Allen, but I somehow get the idea that he was quite a primitive filmmaker. This, I think, is best shown when one reads that he was confused by the success of the original Star Wars, in that it had no love story or major stars and yet became the highest-grossing film of its time. The Swarm, one of the disaster movies that killed his career, could not possibly be more primitive. One of the problems it has is one that it shares with killer bunny movie Night of the Lepus: it has way too serious of a tone and yet seems to be filled with silliness, intentional or not.After a break-in at a military base, Dr. Brad Crane (Michael Crane) takes charge of an operation meant to get rid of a giant swarm of killer bees headed for the United States. That is as simple a story as you could get. Most of it is just repeated attempts to find a way to destroy the bees. However, there are a couple of sub-plots that have nothing to do with anything, such as the wooing of Olivia De Havilland's school headmaster by Ben Johnson and Fred MacMurray; all classic movie actors who have seen better days. Another sub-plot includes Patty Duke being widowed due to killer bee attacks and giving birth to a child, after which she falls in love with her doctor. Neither of these go anywhere as Johnson, MacMurray, and De Havilland are all killed in a train crash caused by the bees before the latter makes a decision about who to marry, and Duke disappears after the birth of her child; none of these people even interact with Dr. Crane or his love interest, Dr. Anderson played by Katharine Ross from The Graduate.Other problems include the acting; it's downright awful. Even Caine, who is usually fantastic, seems dull and uninterested. He did get to buy his mother a house with the money he earned, so he got something out of it. Everyone seems half-hearted, and Ross competes with Caine in terms of dullness. With the characters constantly referring to the killer bees as "Africans," one can be excused for thinking the film is racist, or even anti-immigrant.The script even calls for the characters to do things that border on the hilarious. After losing his parents to the bees, a kid sneaks out of the hospital to throw Molotov cocktails on the beehive, which causes the bees to rampage in his town and kill over 200 people. The kid rightly acknowledges that he is to blame, but Crane tells him "I would have done the same thing." All I can say is, "No you wouldn't." This is an example of Allen's weak attempts to get emotions out of the viewer, along with the unneeded sub-plots and ill-defined relationships. Crane and Anderson are supposed to have a romance, but that hardly seems to come through in the movie. That kid who firebombed the hive is important to Anderson, but how? The film is also too long, as there is very little story to go on, even with an attempted conflict between Crane and Richard Widmark's General Slater, who only seems to dislike Crane because he is a typical tough-guy American general.One detail mentioned in the film is that the fight against the bees has been going on for 15 years. What I don't understand is, if the bees have been killing people for that long, why have they only just started to invade America? I'd say a flashback was in order.To conclude, The Swarm is a film I do not recommend watching, as it is not an enjoyable creature feature. Even Frogs, which was arguably a worse movie, was more entertaining. Irwin Allen has done good work in the 70s, such as with The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno, but The Swarm shows what happens if you try to be as pretentious and simple as possible and make money from an audience in a decade when people wanted their movies to be smarter and fresher.

ironhorse_iv Adapted from a novel of the same name by Arthur Herzog, this science fiction monster horror film directed by Irwin Allen AKA the Master of Disaster, didn't have the buzz, it thought it should had been given when it was release in 1978. The film was a notorious box office bomb upon its release, barely making it two weeks in theaters. It's pretty clear, to say, with that fact, honey; that this 'Bee-list" horror movie wasn't Queen B, at all! Without spoiling the movie too much, I have to say, it was really nice to see, that they were able to find thousands & thousands of real life European honey bees, as shoes-in, for the dangerous real life, African honey bees swarm. It really gave the film, its look. I also love how the bees were manage for the most part of the film, throughout the film. It must had been a huge challenge for production to find several bee keepers who had bees that had their stingers off. I heard that about 800,000 bees were "de-stung" for the close-ups and medium shots filmed with human actors by incapacitating the insects in freezing temperatures. While, most of the 'de-stung', however, some of them, were somewhat missed; so they had to doctors with allergic medicine, just in case. I also love the production story of main actor, Michael Caine eating bee poop, after mistaking it for honey. It must had been very hilarious at the time. However, contrary to popular belief, regarding the bees. Most bees don't really sting, much people, unless they have to. If they do, the bees mostly likely will die as well. This science fact was really missing from the film. Another myth about Africanized bees, is that they're super aggressive. Unlike the over-the-top bees depicted in the film that seem to attack everything, from everywhere by roaming, the real-life African bees are local to the hive. The reason, why is because the banana-scented pheromone which give signals to other bees to attack would be, too weak, the farer, it gets from the main hive. Most bees can only go as far, as ¼ miles from their main source; unless, the bees feel like migrate as part of a seasonal response to lowered food supply or likely to "abscond" in response of deep stress. Seeing how the movie takes place in Texas, I really doubt, they will move as much, due to the extremely dry late summers & harsh winters that state has. In my opinion, the plot would actually have made a lot more sense had it involved wasps rather than bees. Still, seeing these deeply disturbed bees take out, passenger trains, helicopters, and nuclear power plants is bit too unrealistic and ludicrous for even me to take serious; despite how cool, it might seem. Another mistake, this movie made about the bees, is the venom. Africanized honeybee venom is not more painful or voluminous than normal honeybee venom. It wouldn't make you, hallucinate giant insects or any nonsense like that. The only way, to truly die from them, is to be deeply allergic to bees, or to be, total cover, by them. Not only is, the logic behind the science of the bee, seem to be kinda lacking in this film, but the logic by the supposedly on-screen scientist, as well. Dr. Bradford Crane (Michael Caine), is a total moron. Not only, does he repeatedly endangers countless lives in favor of the environment; but he gives in, to a lot of stupid idea that cause many people to die. By the way, setting the ocean on fire using oil is not environment friendly, Crane! I also hate the fact, that he waste time, trying to hook up with Dr. Helena Anderson (Katharine Ross), rather than saving people. Are we're supposed to cheer for him!? I'm not! Anyways, as much as I love Michael Caine as an actor. His character was too annoying. I don't blame Caine for this film failure. He did what he can. I blame, screenwriter Stirling Silliphant for the film direction. This movie has way too many side characters. Yes, it's nice to see certain celebs like Henry Fonda, José Ferrer, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland, Ben Johnson, Fred MacMurray, and Bradford Dillman in the film, but some of them, could had been cut. I hate the fact, that most of them, don't really push the plot, forward. When, they do, it doesn't make any sense, like how the teenager, Paul Durant (Christian Juttner) went back to the hive to taunt the bees, after seeing his parent die. Wasn't a minute ago, he was still hallucinating about giant insects attacking him!? It doesn't make sense. Anyways, the filmmakers really focus way too much on, the characters normal lives than the bee attack concept. Some good examples are the pregnancy angle and the love triangle; which goes nowhere. It's clear, by the writing, that most of them hardly have any pay-off. At least, 3 side characters as far as we know of, seem to just vanish from the movie without any explanation of their fates. What a disaster! This is not how you make a disaster movie with a big cast. I'm deeply disappointing on how lack-lusting, most of these supporting characters are. Another problem with the film is the length. The film is not well paced for a simple plot about killer bees. There was really no reason for this film to be, 116 minutes for the normal theater cut & 156 minutes for the extended DVD cut! That's way too long! The movie's effects are also not that good. Model trains and planes blowing up. Day for night shots & matte painting, make this film, somewhat dated. Even terms like calling the bees 'Africans' seem a bit awkward to watch. Overall: This killer bee invasion movie is not a great watch, but not too bad. It's just below standards

jmillerdp Such an incredible trainwreck! And, yes, there is a trainwreck in the movie! You can say that it is at that point in the movie where the movie goes off the rails. (Get it?)First, I have to tell you perhaps the funniest story of my movie-going life. It was summer 1978. Our family had rented an RV, and were about to go to Colorado. I loved disaster movies, and still do! Well, back then, with a truly great movie like "The Poseidon Adventure," and recent silly, but still likable ones like "Airport '77," I was ready for Irwin Allen's latest! Like, really ready!Now, I couldn't just see it. I had to see it on the BIG SCREEN! That meant the Grandview II, with two 550-seat auditoriums, in St. Louis' North County, 30 or so minutes away. So, I basically dragged my mother and brother up on the opening day afternoon to see "The Swarm!" And, it is as delightfully awful as you know!So, instead of getting ready for our trip, I had the three of us spending hours in going up and back and seeing this crazy movie! You can bet that I didn't hear the end of it for a while. And, the thing is? I didn't care! I loved it. It's awful, it's gloriously insane! It all-but-immediately ended Irwin Allen's career!Plus, I got to read the terrible one-star (at best!) reviews all during our vacation!Everything else you know, if you've seen it. The hilarious actor's reactions to being killed by bees. The endless disasters within disasters: the aforementioned trainwreck, the nuclear plant magically blowing up (!) because bees got into the control room (what?!). It goes on and on.Plus, introducing all these characters, just to kill them off for the heck of it! And, the only-here-for-the-paycheck actors of the requisite "All-Star Cast." Lastly, you have to LOVE the way they deal with the bees at the end! The one thing I can unequivocally endorse is Jerry Goldsmith's score. 1978 was his greatest year, with one great score after another (plus, another Oscar nomination for "The Boys from Brazil") Here, Goldsmith again provides a score as if he is providing music for the greatest film ever! I love this movie, as impossibly bad as it is! Please, please, remaster this and release it on Blu-ray. After all, we could all use a good laugh these days!******* (7 Out of 10 Stars)

kapelusznik18 ****SPOILERS*** What turned out to be the last of the 1970's big budget disaster movies turned out to be a total disaster in the box-office making back just half of it's costs. The movie has Michael Caine as bee expert Dr. Bradford Crane trying to save the South-West of the USA from a massive killer bee attack that nothing, even the US military, seems to be unable to stop. Called throughout the movie as "The Africans" the bees end up killing off almost the entire cast of the movie until, when all hope is gone, Dr. Crane and his doctor girlfriend Helena Anderson, Katharine Ross, discover a way to prevent the killer bees from overrunning the city of Huston. Not with fire power, including nuclear weapons, or thousands of spry cans of DDT but but love! The bees mating call that's mistakenly being used in local computers of military bases and local atomic power plants that has set the killer bees into a frenzy looking for action, or love, in all the wrong places! Thus resulting in the death, by deadly bee stings as well as bee related accidents, of hundreds if not thousands of people.It's US Air Force General Thaddeus, Richard Widmark, who's given the thankless task by the President himself, Jimmy Carter?,to prevent the bees from overrunning or overflying the entire USA. Which almost causes the general, in him not being unable to prevent it, to suffer a complete nervous as well as physical breakdown. In the end when Gen. Thaddeus just about gave up it was the bees that finally did him in together with his entire staff. Thers's also the eminent and wheel-chair bound immunologist Dr. Walter Krim, Henry Fonda, who to save the world put his life on the line. That by Dr. Krim injecting himself with bee venom that if successful can cure the many bee sting victims only to fall victim, yes it didn't work, himself.The big moment in the movie, before the bees were finally did in, was when a frantic Dr. Hubard-not Dr. Kildare-played by Richard Chamberlain looking like the Wolf-Man of London tries to get nuclear plant manager Jose Ferrer,Dr. Andrews, to shut his plant down before the bees, by swarming into it, do it for him. Not listening to reason and just doing his job ended up costing Dr.Andrews his life together with everyone , including Dr. Hubbard, within 10 miles of the plant. As it soon detonated in an nuclear explosion that wiped out half the state of Texas.Considered by it's star Michael Caine to be the worst movie that he ever was in "The Swarm" still has it's high points that as crazy as they are keeps the audience interested in watching it. The film is so unintentionally funny that despite all the deaths that the killer or "African" bees cause you just don't work up enough emotion to miss or feel sorry for any of them. The explosive ending of the movie came so suddenly that it looked forced as if the movie makers and what seems like the last two survivors, Caine & Ross, of the movie were happy as hell to see it was finally over and then try to forget as much as they can that they were ever in it!