Very silly and dumb but, as pointed out in the book on Amicus, “The Studio That Dripped Blood”, it’s oddly endearing. You can’t dislike a silly film about killer bees I guess, especially when they throw in a few groovy 60s pop numbers at the beginning – the heroine is Suzanna Leigh, 60s glam girl in her only lead, who has a nervous breakdown and recovers in a small town where someone is unleashing killer bees. Leigh is blonde and this plus the small town setting indicates the filmmakers might have had ideas about The Birds in the back of their heads.
They don’t come anywhere near it – the script is a mess (by Robert Bloch but heavily rewritten by Freddie Francis then heavily re-edited), but Frank Finlay and Guy Doleman offer professional support (one of them is the baddie), there’s also Michael Ripper, Hammer veteran of veterans, as an inn keeper, the idea of distilling the smell of fear isn’t a bad one, Ronnie Woods pops up in the band at the beginning, Leigh is menaced in her underwear, and some of the bee attacks are actually scary. There’s some Aussies in the support cast: Doleman, of course, and the bees, who were imported from down under.
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