The Swarm (1978)

A swarm of deadly African killer bees invade a small Texas town and after destroying the town and killing countless people, they proceed to larger prey like Houston. In the meantime, a scientist (Michael Caine) sets up headquarters at a local missile base and attempts to find a solution to end the bees reign of terror. Based on the novel by Arthur Herzog and directed by Irwin Allen. So bad that it effectively killed off the disaster movie as a genre. It's not even fun the way a bad disaster movie like AIRPORT 1975 can be, it's dull and turgid and just lies there like a deflated balloon. In his previous disaster movies, Allen was smart enough to hand over the director reins to good directors like Ronald Neame (POSEIDON ADVENTURE) and John Guillermin (TOWERING INFERNO). Here, he takes over the directorial duties and it's a disaster (no pun intended). I squirmed in my seat seeing so many talented actors give dreadful performances. Caine comes off the worst, either barking his lines or reading them with a flat monotone. One expects bad performances from Henry Fonda and Jose Ferrer but if I hadn't seen Olivia De Havilland, Richard Widmark, Katharine Ross, Patty Duke, Lee Grant, Richard Chamberlain, Ben Johnson and Fred MacMurray in other films, I'd assume they were the dregs of their profession. Jerry Goldsmith tries to whip up some excitement with his score but to no avail. With Bradford Dillman, Slim Pickens, Cameron Mitchell and Alejandro Rey.