INVASION OF THE BEE GIRLS (1973)

Director: Denis Sanders

Writers: Nicholas Meyer, Sylvia Schneble

Producer: unknown

Cast: William Smith, Victoria Vetri, Anitra Ford, Cliff Osmond, Ben Hammer, Sid Kaiser, Wright King, Anna Aries, Beverly Powers, Andre Philippe, Katie A. Saylor, William Keller, Cliff Emmich, Jack Perkins, Danielle DuPont, Mary Sweeney, Amanda Jeffries, Sharon Madigan, Rene Bond, Cathy Hilton, Susie Player, Al Burdiggi, Tom Pittman, Mickey Caruso, Herb Robbins, Gregg White, F. Stewart Wilson, John Nelson, Dick Murphy, Lloyd McLinn, Don Hall, Steve Lefkowitz, and uncredited actors Colleen Brennan, Christopher Jeffries, Lynn Lemon 

The State Department’s Office of Security sends Special Agent Neil Agar (William Smith) to investigate a series of deaths happening to employees of the federally funded Brandt Research lab in Peckham, California. The victims are all men and seem to have expired from sexual exhaustion. As the fatalities continue to occur to other locals, the town is quarantined as Agar confers with scientists at the lab to determine the cause of the strange deaths. 

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The sexual revolution takes a nasty turn in Invasion of the Bee Girls. This sci-fi fright flick milks its titillation for every juicy ounce to make every hetero male viewer understand just how vulnerable their own drives leave them. We see that even scientists can have more balls than brains. Most men can’t help but think with the wrong head when confronted with the awesome allure of Bee Girls.

I love it when a film uses an outrageous exploitation hook to get our attention and then tries to justify it as a legitimate basis for a storyline; if it works you get some terrific and probably cult status entertainment. This is a film that shamelessly flaunts its exploitation aims with its title, its content, and its genre with an added bit of humor regarding the still ticklish subject of sex in the increasingly permissive era of the '70s. This permissiveness is shown to be spreading all throughout society. It is not just the young and hip anti-establishment that is messing around here. Often it is middle-aged blue-collar workers and government employees that are getting it on and getting offed. 

Invasion of the Bee Girls has the novelty of its threat being quite different from the science fiction film invasions that had come before, if you’ll pardon the expression. The '50s sci-fi fright flicks had conditioned the audience to expect giant mutant monsters and attacks from outer space. Here the '70s drive-in crowd was getting the budget-conscious movie menace of beautiful women providing the edgy thrills of nudity, sex, and death. That it is also venting anxiety about loosening sexual mores and/or relishing promiscuity makes this a film that is saavy about both what its audience wants and of the changing times. 

A scene that I find is not just a setup for some cheap laughs but actually quite honest and unaffected is the small town meeting. Sheriff Peters (Cliff Osmond), Dr. Murger (Wright King) of the Brandt Research lab, and government agent Neil Agar are briefing the citizens. As the sexual details about the local deaths are expressed, there are laughs among the attending locals. When the citizens are asked to abstain from sex during this crisis, one crude loudmouth (Jack Perkins) proclaims his defiance by proudly stating that he will continue to fornicate with or without his wife. This scene plays as an irreverent variation on the exposition and advice delivered by the authorities to citizens in sci-fi flicks of the past. 

The most intimidating '70s movie tough guy of them all, William Smith, stars as hero Neil Agar (probably referencing '50s sci-fi film icon John Agar). He seems like a no-nonsense type of government agent that can still be civil. A nice bit is his apologetic overture to the stressed Sheriff Peters to maintain mutual respect and cooperation for solving the strange mystery. Of course, even when William Smith plays a nice guy, he still needs to kick some ass. 

Anitra Ford is the cool and slinky brunette playing entomologist Dr. Susan Harris. She was most famous as a model on the game show The Price is Right. Ford also appeared as the villainous Amazon Ahnjayla in 1974’s Wonder Woman. That was a one-off television movie starring Cathy Lee Crosby a year before Lynda Carter became synonymous with the superheroine in a revamped and successful TV series. 

Perhaps the most amusing but unlikable character is Herb Kline (Ben Hammer). He is the horny Brandt Research scientist that is cracking jokes about his deceased colleague and lusting after aloof and beautiful fellow scientist Dr. Susan Harris. We lose all sympathy for Kline when he sneaks away for a round of hanky-panky with Dr. Harris despite having his magnificent wife Nora (Anna Aries) waiting at home. In another nod to the sexual permissiveness of the times, Kline actually flaunts his infidelity to the amusement of our hero Neil Agar. 

Cliff Osmond’s Sheriff Peters would be a likely contender for the National Law Enforcement Officer of the Year Award. He goes above and beyond the call of duty with superhuman willpower resisting the charms of superhumanly sexy Anna Aries as a newly transformed Bee Girl. 

Even hidden behind large sunglasses and a loose lounging robe, Anna Aries’ allure is pheromonally phenomenal. Seeing her statuesque form lovingly slathered in transformation enabling goop by other Bee Girls is the sci-fi stuff wet dreams are made of. Her filmography is frustratingly brief and her background seems as mysterious as the Bee Girls themselves. 

There are also plenty of other Bee Girl beauties in Dr. Harris’ hive to keep buzzing our libidos. Beverly Powers, Katie A. Saylor, Colleen Brennan, Mary Sweeney, Amanda Jeffries, Sharon Madigan, Renee Bond, and Cathy Hilton contribute to a sexy line-up that is the best special effect any exploitation movie could ask for. 

As Brandt Research librarian Julie Zorn, Victoria Vetri also has her beauty put on display. The 1968 Playboy Playmate of the Year had quite a few television and film roles in her résumé, but she is probably best known for flaunting her fine physique as a cave girl in When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970). Vetri was also quite good (credited as Angela Dorian) in a small and down to earth role as Terry in the horror classic Rosemary’s Baby (1968). In that film her character is told that she looks like the actress Victoria Vetri. 

Although my frustration of never having been seduced by a Bee Girl is tempered by the comfort of not having been screwed to death, this film still leaves me with a few other nagging quibbles. The origination of the Bee Girl menace is rather vague. Dr. Susan Harris is the mistress of this bee girl hive, yet it is unclear just what her objectives were with the mad science employed here. Just how agent Agar ever fixates on some sort of mutation phenomenon as the possible culprit for the killings is not ever clearly explained. I guess that he just somehow intuits that a research facility full of geneticists and entomologists must somehow result in lethal human mating habits. Finally, the climax seems a bit too abrupt. One well-placed bullet sure causes a lot of convenient and catastrophic chaos. 

The horror genre is often touching upon themes of sex and death. Invasion of the Bee Girls is entirely devoted to those aspects. Its timely relevance in the swinging '70s also makes it seem a little satirical. Despite a few nits to pick, this film’s simplicity, originality, wit, and pulchritude are just enough honey to keep this B-film fan buzzing.

UNCLE SAM (1996)

Director: William Lustig

Writer: Larry Cohen

Producer: George G. Braunstein

Cast: David Shark Fralick, Leslie Neale, Christopher Ogden, Isaac Hayes, Anne Tremko, Bo Hopkins, William Smith, Matthew Flint, Timothy Bottoms, Tim Grimm, Tom McFadden, P.J. Soles, Robert Forster, Zachary McLemore, Richard Cummings, Jr., Morgan Paull, Frank Pesce, Abby Ball, Laura Alcalde, Jason Adelman, Stanton Barrett, Raquel Alessi, Mark Chadwick, Chris Durand, Desirae Klein, Taylor Jones, Jason Lustig, Joseph Vitare, Steve Moramarco, Gary Viggers, Peter Fullerton, Jonathon Stearns, Greg Bronson (uncredited), Howard Kremer (uncredited) 

US Army Master Sergeant Sam Harper (David Shark Fralick) has been killed by friendly fire during Desert Storm in Kuwait. His body is sent back to his hometown for burial just before the Fourth of July. A combination of his nephew Jody’s (Christopher Ogden) hero worship of him and various town citizens disrespecting American patriotic tradition causes Sam Harper to rise from the dead and kill during the July 4th celebrations. 

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I like to watch date specific horror films during the times of the year that their stories occur. The Fog (1980) deals with an event on April 21st. The date for Bloody Birthday (1981) is June 9th. Urban Legend (1998) is concerned with a college anniversary of an April 23rd atrocity. Of course, there are obvious holiday candidates such as Black Christmas (1974) and My Bloody Valentine (1981), but did you know that Dr. Orloff’s Monster (1964) also takes place during Christmas and that the menace of X-Ray (1982) began on Valentine’s Day? Let’s not forget the date specific film franchises of Halloween and Friday the 13th. The selection of fright flicks that take place during the United States’ Independence Day holiday are pretty sparse, but there are some to choose from, such as Frogs (1972), Jaws (1975), The Return of the Living Dead (1985), and I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997). The most overtly July 4th themed horror film is Uncle Sam.

This movie has really grown on me over the years. Uncle Sam is a supernatural slasher flick that I first felt was just a little too arbitrary with its fantasy element. However, upon repeated viewings, I have appreciated that writer Larry Cohen has contrived a lot of incidents, traditions, and character traumas that accidentally combine to realize the dark magic of its undead menace. There is more going on here than just a patriotic version of Jason Voorhees.

It takes quite a while for Sam Harper’s body count to get underway, and I think that is just fine. His nephew Jody’s hero worship and accidental dripping of his own blood on a signed photo of his Uncle Sam, the July 4th holiday, the lack of mourning from other members of Sam’s family, and local sentiments that disrespect patriotic tradition or question nationalism are all combining to enable the magical resurrection of soldier Sgt. Sam Harper. War hero Sam Harper has severe personality faults and grievances. They react to the accumulation of “anti-American” sentiments and behavior in his community to provide the impetus that drives this monster out of his casket to commence his murder spree. Like the best slasher movie villains, there is a strong motivation for the killer’s MO. Unlike a simple EC Comics story of a corpse returning from the dead simply because it wants revenge with no reason provided for that supernatural feat, the Uncle Sam story mixes together a lot of attitudes, behaviors, and traditions that accidentally combine to create the dark zeitgeist that empowers the supernatural phenomenon of Sam Harper’s reanimation. It is still an utterly fantastic event, but the film tries to justify its cause. 

Writer Larry Cohen and director William Lustig are also taking the time to present the themes that this movie is really about that gives the audience something to mull over. They present a child protagonist that demonstrates how naïve it is to glorify war and unquestioning nationalism. They also present the dark side of some military figures and the cynicism of some civilians. All of these characters are a part of the country’s institutions or engage in the patriotic celebrations, yet that does not validate their character and behavior. 

Like all of the best holiday themed slasher films, Uncle Sam finds plenty of holiday traditions and symbols to riff on. This provides much of the fun to be found in the story. The festive July 4th pastimes of barbeques, live music, fireworks, parades, and community gatherings are threatened by the deadly presence of the undead Uncle Sam.

There is also plenty of dark humor to be found in the various characters’ cynicism and hypocrisies. Unsavory and petty conduct by people in uniform (Bo Hopkins and Matthew Flint), vain and opportunistic conduct by a politician (Robert Forster), tax cheating enabled by a lawyer (Tim Grimm), and disrespect shown to the American flag and the national anthem are all punished. I enjoy the fates that some of these jerks suffer, yet I still realize that there is also a very evil nationalism doling out the punishment. Even by the purest standards of patriotism, not all of Sam’s victims deserve what they get. Writer Cohen brings a unique sense of unease to many of his films by tweaking subject matter often considered sacred such as childbirth in It’s Alive (1974), religion and divinity in God Told Me To (1976), and patriotism in Uncle Sam. 

Lest anyone think that Uncle Sam is nothing more than an anti-military film, it also has the Korean War veteran character Sgt. Jed Crowley played by Isaac Hayes. This character is sympathetic and presents the good side of the American military man. He makes the case that war is not about macho glory and that the reasons for these conflicts are not always clear, which could mean that they are not always justified. 

Uncle Sam is not meant to be an America bashing film. It is a nationalism bashing film. It is examining the conflicted feelings about the nation’s wartime past and present. It makes the point that flags, uniforms, and traditions do not validate national policy or justify war.

Despite these sober concerns, Uncle Sam does not forget to be a fun and nasty horror film. Once it establishes its dark themes and its zombie villain, it lets loose. From a patriotic Peeping Tom on stilts to the worst performance of the national anthem ever, Uncle Sam amuses at the same time it abuses the nation’s holiday traditions.