Tag: Invasion of the Bee Girls

Night of the Lepus (1972)

NIGHT OF THE LEPUS (1972) Three stars

Janet Leigh (1927-2004) famously said that she never took another shower after her iconic scene in PSYCHO.

Wonder what she said after her performance in William F. Claxton’s NIGHT OF THE LEPUS.

Reportedly, Leigh said “I’ve forgotten as much as I could about that picture.”

Well, Claxton ain’t quite Hitchcock and NIGHT OF THE LEPUS ain’t quite PSYCHO, but this 1972 picture certainly deserves a far better reputation. Like PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, it’s simply just too darn entertaining to be anywhere near the “worst movie ever made.”

After all, it’s not every day that you see a bad movie featuring Leigh, Stuart Whitman, Rory Calhoun (1922-99), DeForest Kelley (1920-99), Paul Fix (1901-83), and a cast of all-star killer rabbits. They’re playing it straight and not condescending to the material. Give them at least that much credit.

The single biggest gripe against NIGHT OF THE LEPUS: The killer rabbits are not scary. I don’t know if there’s ever been a single review of NIGHT OF THE LEPUS that’s gone without making a major note about the premise itself and then the botched execution of that bad idea.

Claxton and crew obviously worked very hard to make the homicidal rabbits more imposing and terrifying. They constructed miniature sets for regular-sized rabbits to run wild through, filmed them from angles conducive to making the rabbits appear larger-than-life, and cooked up very convincing guttural noises for our furry friends when they’re in full-on beast mode. Basically, our title characters look like they’re running wild on the set of a Western filmed in the back lots of Arizona … and I believe that’s exactly what happened.

Maybe one day they’ll cross NIGHT OF THE LEPUS with THE TERROR OF TINY TOWN.

As far as rabbits not being scary, I do believe these complainers have not encountered that dynamite rabbit from MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL and Ted “Theodore” Logan’s brush with the Easter Bunny from Hell in BILL AND TED’S BOGUS JOURNEY.

Rabbits can be scary. In theory, anything could be scary, if done right.

Honestly, I don’t know if I could handle a truly scary killer rabbit picture.

The producers did their best to obscure the nature of the killers in promoting NIGHT OF THE LEPUS, apparently booking on the fact that millions did not know the Latin word for rabbit.

They believed that people would not waste their time and money on a killer rabbit picture.

Idiom: “A fool and his money are soon parted.”

Well, here we are at least 47 years after the release of NIGHT OF THE LEPUS and I received a DVD copy of the film for an early Christmas present. It’s a gift that’s already kept on giving.

On first re-watch, I enjoyed NIGHT OF THE LEPUS all over again and I actually enjoyed it more at the age of 41 being able to see all its flaws more clearly than when I first watched the film in late prepubescence. I enjoyed all the melodramatic efforts to make the rabbits scary (especially the bloody aftermath of rabbits on the rampage scenes), all the scientific mumbo-jumbo, all the scenes of the rabbits on their attack route (Pamplona with rabbits and no people), all the blatantly obvious set-ups for blatantly obvious payoffs, the ridiculous final plan to exterminate the rabbits and restore natural order, and I especially loved watching the all-star cast diligently keep a straight face through all the silliness and earn their paychecks.

It’s still a notch below such contemporaneous classics as FROGS, GODZILLA VS. THE SMOG MONSTER, and INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS.

Invasion of the Bee Girls (1973)

DAY 99, INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS.jpg

INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS (1973) Three-and-a-half stars
Granted, you know yourself better than anybody else, but tell me if this tagline / synopsis just doesn’t hook you in right away: “A powerful cosmic force is turning Earth women into queen bees who kill men by wearing them out sexually.”

I mean, sign me up to watch that movie!

Did Valerie Solanas ­— author of the SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) Manifesto and famous for her attempted assassination of Andy Warhol — write INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS?

Not even close, because INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS gives us a Grade-A B-nudie flick and you know that when the most prudish character is played by a former Playmate of the Year (Victoria Vetri, when she went under the name Angela Dorian).

Anyway, future STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN and TIME AFTER TIME scribe and director Nicholas Meyer wrote this one and it’s something that he can be proud about. I mean, it’s something that I would be proud about writing.

Apparently not, since Meyer wanted to have his name removed from the credits before his manager talked the Hollywood newcomer down. Upon further research, Meyer’s script had been altered while he visited his family, hence that whole wanting his name stricken from the permanent record.

I bet folks ask him all the darn time about THE WRATH OF KHAN and TIME AFTER TIME, and understandably so, but how about INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS, a film that I believe rates with THE WRATH OF KHAN and TIME AFTER TIME on an entertainment level.

I don’t know, I enjoyed this film like I enjoyed Russ Meyer classics FASTER, PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL! and BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS and let’s face it that I’m amused by such a ridiculous premise and I’m turned on by the women in this film like I am the women in FASTER PUSSYCAT and BEYOND THE VALLEY.

In his IMDb profile, William Smith’s biography starts “Biker, bare-knuckle brawler, cowboy, Bee-Girl fighter, vampire hunter … William Smith has done it all.” Over a long career, you might remember him for being at odds with Joe Namath in the biker flick C.C. AND COMPANY (1970) or being Clint Eastwood’s fisticuffs opponent in ANY WHICH WAY YOU CAN (1980), which could go 15 rounds with THEY LIVE’s fight scene between Roddy Piper and Keith David.

Obviously, William Smith’s government agent Neil Agar can hang with the bizarre world of INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS.

Ultimately, though, it’s not about him and the beautiful women, led by Anitra Ford’s Dr. Susan Harris and the Brandt Research Facility, and the dirty old men here make the horny scientists in TOWER OF EVIL (1972) chaste in comparison. Look up “horny scientist flick” and INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS should be depicted with the incredible bee girl transformation sequence filed Exhibit A.

I can’t go without mentioning the line “They’re dropping like flies.” I love it every single line, every single time. If I would have had the opportunity to meet late character actor Cliff Osmond (1937-2012), I would have made him read me that line.

Other taglines for INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS: “They’ll Love the Very Life Out of Your Body!”, “Ordinary housewives turn into ravishing creatures,” and “They’ll Turn You on from Dusk to Dawn.”

Other titles for INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS: “The Honey Factor” (working); “Alien Predators” (bootleg); “Graveyard Tramps” (reissue). On French TV, the movie plays as INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS.

You can find copies of INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS everywhere, since its D-cups are public domain.

I came across it on at least two different cheapie 50-movie horror packs from Mill Creek that stack up public domain titles ranging from classics like NOSFERATU and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD to less than classics, some of them so bad that I don’t want to even name them.

MGM packaged INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS with INVASION OF THE STAR CREATURES during its epic “Midnite Movies Double Feature” DVD series.

There’s also INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS packaged with THE DEVIL’S 8, UNHOLY ROLLERS, and VICIOUS LIPS on the “4 Cult Movie Marathon Volume One” DVD … and the Bee Girls also have a Scream Factory solo Blu-Ray release.