{"id":38969,"date":"2023-02-20T13:25:24","date_gmt":"2023-02-20T18:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=38969"},"modified":"2023-09-06T05:44:32","modified_gmt":"2023-09-06T09:44:32","slug":"bad-movie-monday-the-swarm-1977","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2023\/02\/20\/bad-movie-monday-the-swarm-1977\/","title":{"rendered":"BAD MOVIE MONDAY: THE SWARM (1977)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I thought I\u2019d do something a little bit different this week. Until now, I\u2019ve only been reviewing stuff that I\u2019ve watched with friends. However, this time I was thinking of reviewing a bad movie that I like very much but don\u2019t think is appropriate to watch in a group. So today we\u2019re going to tackle the buzzing bullshit that is THE SWARM.
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Quick Recap! When COVID shut down everything in early 2020, I started an online bad movie night get-together with some friends that we eventually dubbed \u201cBad Movie Monday\u201d. The premise was simple: We\u2019d torture each other every Monday with the worst trash we could find, tell a few jokes, cheer each other up, and in the process maybe discover some weird obscure cinema that we might never have seen any other way. This series of reviews will feature highlights of those night so you can all share in the fun and maybe get some ideas for your own movie night.<\/em><\/p>\n

Cards on the table, The Swarm is far from a \u201cbad\u201d bad movie. In fact, it\u2019s a GREAT bad movie. One of the first bad movies I ever enjoyed as<\/em> a bad movie. It stars Michael Caine, Katharine Ross, Richard Widmark, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland, Ben Johnson, Lee Grant, Jos\u00e9 Ferrer, Patty Duke, Slim Pickens, Bradford Dillman, Henry Fonda and Fred MacMurray. It was written by Stirling Silliphant based on a book by Arthur Herzog, and directed by Irwin Allen. All that raw talent under Allen\u2019s less than stellar directing skills? Chef\u2019s kiss! Perfection! However, it\u2019s just way too damn long at two hours and thirty-five minutes. Yes, it has a lot of really great fun moments, but it\u2019s \u201cmore long than fun\u201d if you get my drift.<\/p>\n

Look, if I can give you any advice for picking a fun bad movie to watch with friends, it\u2019s this: The shorter the better. In my opinion, a bad movie\u2019s ideal length is around ninety minutes. Anything over that and the movie will be a worse experience, anything under that and the movie will be a better experience. Always remember the wise words of the great playwright William Shakespeare when he said \u201cBrevity is the soul of wit\u201d It\u2019s kind of like that, only this time you\u2019re watching something that includes honking noise sound effects when a guy squeezes a woman\u2019s breasts.<\/p>\n

What happens when a movie is too long is that once one of your friends starts to get bored that leads to another friend getting bored. Within a very short time, the boredom becomes as contagious as a yawn and nobody\u2019s having fun anymore. That threshold of patience is roughly around thirty continuous minutes of tedium and when a bad movie is over two hours long this is almost certain to occur. You can actually feel it as it happens. People start to laugh less. They make less jokes. Eventually, they just sit and quietly wait for the end credits to roll. That\u2019s not a fun thing to experience.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s THE SWARM about? What\u2019s the story? Well, allow me to explain it badly. The Swarm is about the \u201cinevitable\u201d attack on the United-States by Africanized Killer Bees. If you\u2019ve seen a disaster movie before you\u2019ll feel in familiar territory. You\u2019ve got a main \u201cA\u201d story is about a civilian entomologist called Bradford Crane (Michael Caine) being put in charge of the military by the President of the United-States and given unlimited power and resources to stop the bees after they take out an ICBM command bunker in South Texas, and two \u201cB\u201d stories that are roughly interwoven in the main narrative in order to give us a sense of scope about what\u2019s going on. The first \u201cB\u201d story is the better of the two, about a boy called Paul Durant whose whole family was killed by bees. It\u2019s short and dumb but it feels part of the narrative at least. The second is a weird totally out of place soap opera-esque love triangle between Fred MacMurray, Olivia de Havilland, and Ben Johnson that feels like it\u2019s from another movie.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s ignore the \u201cB\u201d stories though, because they don\u2019t really advance the plot at all. Instead, let\u2019s focus on Michael Caine\u2019s character and how he\u2019s a complete and utter tool. He\u2019s so terrible at his job that I literally thought the film was going to have a twist ending where he reveals that he\u2019s actually a giant bee pretending to be Doctor Bradford Crane. It\u2019s ridiculous the number of times he refuses rational courses of action. For example, the military General under Crane\u2019s charge (Richard Widmark) suggests dropping massive amounts of poison on the bees. Crane is horrified and refuses because it would also kill regular bees. He then goes on a rant about how killing normal bees would kill the crops, and by killing the crops you\u2019d kill the people. Never mind the fact that no one was suggesting to do this nationwide, only in the very small area in Texas where the killer bees are now. An area whose main crop seems to be flowers. Not exactly the greatest loss. Later, after a small town is attacked by bees and over two hundred people are killed, the military chastises Crane for not evacuating the area since the bees have been so close by. \u201cWhy evacuate?\u201d Crane says, and if he sounded stupid before now he just sounds completely crazy.<\/p>\n

However, regardless of Crane\u2019s objection everyone is<\/em> eventually evacuated by the military, which is what should have been done in the first place, but since the movie is determined to demonize good ideas the bees manage to crash the train in the most ridiculous way possible and kill everyone on board, including most of the cast from the \u201cB\u201d story about love triangles and whatnot. So at least that\u2019s out of the way now.<\/p>\n

FINALLY, Crane decides to drop some environmentally friendly poison pellets on the killer bees. Stuff that is supposed to only affect those specific bees and nothing else. It doesn\u2019t work, because of course it doesn\u2019t. Oh, and that kid Paul from the earlier \u201cB\u201d stories dies of\u2026 something. Running out of options, one of Crane\u2019s friends who is helping him fight the bees, Doctor Krim (Henry Fonda) decides to test an experimental antidote to the bee venom on himself. Fonda\u2019s character is a frail old man in a wheelchair, which begs the question \u201cWhy test this on yourself???\u201d If two stings killed a healthy young boy in the space of a few days, perhaps not inject yourself with the equivalent of SIX stings. The scene of him testing it on himself, without an assistant of course, is shown in long intricate detail. He explains every step of the process in a long monologue. This is such slow torture that I\u2019d have let him inject ME with that goddamn bee venom at this point if it could have ended the movie sooner. In any case, it was all for nothing since he dies. SPOILERS. Shocking right? Crane\u2019s character then has an emotional scene where it\u2019s obvious that actor Michael Caine is desperately trying not to laugh as he pretends to be devastated.<\/p>\n

Thirty-four minutes to go.<\/p>\n

So what happens next? One of the characters had mentioned a nuclear power plant earlier. So of course the bees blow it up. SPOILERS! This is even stupider than the train scene. Oh well, if you ever wanted to see Jose Ferrer and Richard Chamberlain covered in bees then you\u2019re in luck.<\/p>\n

FINALLY, after over thirty-six thousand people die in the Nuclear Plant meltdown and receiving information that the Killer Bees are now heading for the city of Houston the President of the United-States realizes Doctor Crane\u2019s complete incompetence and strips him of his powers. Which leads to a really weird scene where Richard Widmark, as General Slater, says \u201cFrom now on the war against the Africans will be under military direction.\u201d Which is a really really really strange way of putting it. I don\u2019t know if this was some sort of subtle commentary on race relations in America or something, but\u2026 damn. That line really stuck out in a movie full of weird dialogue.<\/p>\n

Alright, let\u2019s pinch off this turd. Houston has been evacuated and taken over by bees, and the Military response is simply to burn the city to the ground. How do they do this you ask? With incendiary devices or bombs? No, no, no. Of course not. They just send in nine guys with flamethrowers to burn everything within sight. Does this make any sense? No, and I don\u2019t care about logic anymore. The movie STILL has twenty-minutes left to go and it feels as long as the Vietnam War by this point.<\/p>\n

Speaking of Vietnam, Doctor Crane finally figures out that the bees are attracted to sound waves. So he hatches up a plan to lure the swarm over the ocean where he has the military dump billions of gallons of oil into the water. Once the bees are over the slick, he has it SET ON FIRE. Remember when he was going on about the environment earlier? How everything existed in a delicate balance? Apparently, he decided that fish could go fuck themselves.<\/p>\n

The movie then mercifully ends with Michael Caine and Katherine Ross standing in front of the burning ocean waxing poetically about how the world might just survive if we use the time we\u2019ve gained wisely,<\/p>\n

Christ on a crutch that was a long one.<\/p>\n

THE SWARM was not the end for the Disaster Movie genre, but it was as ominous as an undertaker standing outside a hospital room. Where previous entries in the genre had been a fairly solid bit of soap opera silliness, Swarm almost felt like parody where none of the jokes have punchlines. To be fair, I actually enjoyed this movie more than I\u2019m letting on, but it is a bit exhausting. If you have the stamina, I say go check it out. However, if you don\u2019t feel like spending 155 minutes of your life watching Michael Caine try not to laugh through most of his scenes, I\u2019ll understand.<\/p>\n

And now we come to my favorite part of any review where I list ten random thoughts I had watching the movie:<\/p>\n

#1 \u2013 One early scene that got me laughing particularly hard was when the military, investigating why everyone in the ICBM bunker is dead, are about to open the elevator doors to go down into the control room and two guys who are carrying flamethrowers point them at the doors. You know, just in case there\u2019s something inside. Well, what the hell were they gonna do if there was<\/em> something? Shoot a blast liquid fire about a foot away from their own faces? Why not just throw grenades in there while you\u2019re at it? I mean, why not? I\u2019d rather be blown to smithereens than roasted alive. Why did they even bring them anyway? I get that they look cool, but they\u2019re not a very useful weapon in close quarters.<\/p>\n

#2 \u2013 This is trying to be so topical that it\u2019s an inadvertent comedy. Back in the late seventies everybody and their mom were afraid of Killer Bees. Think people today freak out about every little thing? Dear God, you weren\u2019t there for the Satanic Panic, Ancient Astronauts, The looming ice age, Three Mile Island, Watergate, the metric system, the Oil Crisis, and yes\u2026 THE FUCKING BEES.<\/p>\n

#3 \u2013 This isn\u2019t just trying to entertain you. No, it wants to EDUCATE you about the dangers of Killer Bees. It wants to teach you a lesson about respecting nature or\u2026 something. I\u2019m not sure. I don\u2019t think the movie knows either. The ending is certainly ambiguous.<\/p>\n

#4 \u2013 Michael Caine is a treasure. If you made a drinking game where you take a sip when it\u2019s obvious that Caine\u2019s only motivation during a scene is trying not to laugh you\u2019d be as drunk as Michael Caine probably was during the filming of the movie. Doctor Bradford Crane is probably one of the most ridiculous characters he\u2019s ever played, and that is saying a lot.<\/p>\n

#5 \u2013 One of the things that becomes clear upon repeated viewings of the film is how many times Caine\u2019s character is disastrously wrong. Not just wrong, but catastrophically, apocalyptically wrong. And not just that but the Military, who are consistently portrayed to be bad guys throughout the movie and who Caine constantly butt heads with, are almost always right.<\/p>\n

#6 \u2013 The movie is so desperate to show that Doctor Crane is always right and always knows what to do that one scene involves him curing a boy of the effects of bee venom by talking to him. That\u2019s right, the man can heal with the simple power of his voice. I\u2019m not kidding either, this is in the movie.<\/p>\n

#7 \u2013 I know that the scene where a grade school is attacked by bees is supposed to be tragic, but the overuse of slow motion and the fact that I find people running away from bees hysterically funny had me rolling around the floor in a puddle of tears.<\/p>\n

#8 \u2013 There\u2019s a scene where, after Henry Fonda\u2019s character dies, Caine is supposed to be so broken up that he sits in Fonda\u2019s wheelchair and starts rolling back and forth with it, then the camera pans to Fonda\u2019s glasses and I wondered for a crazy minute if Caine wasn\u2019t just going to put them on and start rolling around the room laughing hysterically.<\/p>\n

#9 \u2013 This is not Jerry Goldsmith\u2019s best score, but then again there\u2019s only so much you can do when your principal musical theme is Bzz-Bzz-Bzz-Bzz-Bzz-Bzzzzzzz-Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz-Bzzzzzt!!!<\/p>\n

#10 \u2013 Depending on sources, THE SWARM either cost the same as the original 1977 Star Wars or twice as much. No joke here, just an observation. Money well spent eh? It made all of 7.7 million dollars.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I thought I\u2019d do something a little bit different this week. Until now, I\u2019ve only been reviewing stuff that I\u2019ve watched with friends. However, this time I was thinking of reviewing a bad movie that I like very much but don\u2019t think is appropriate to watch in a group. So today we\u2019re going to tackle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3070],"tags":[3113,3115,3116,3114],"class_list":["post-38969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-badmoviemonday","tag-bees","tag-disaster-movie","tag-irwin-allen","tag-michael-caine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38969"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40976,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38969\/revisions\/40976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}