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. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

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.

HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS (1988)

Director: Fred Olen Ray

Writers: Fred Olen Ray, T.L. Lankford

Producer: Fred Olen Ray

Cast: Jay Richardson, Linnea Quigley, Michelle Bauer (as Michelle McClellan), Gunnar Hansen, Dawn Wildsmith, Esther Elise (as Esther Alise), Tricia Burns, Jerry Fox, Jimmy Williams, Michael Sonye (as Dukey Flyswatter), Susie Wilson, Dennis Monney, Jerry Miller, Steve Welles, Charles O’Hair, Jeffrey Wilson, Gerry Jenkins, Gary Levinson, Sandy Palm (uncredited), Christopher Ray (uncredited) 

Los Angeles private detective Jack Chandler (Jay Richardson) is looking for a runaway girl (Linnea Quigley). In the course of his investigation, he stumbles upon a cult of chainsaw-wielding hookers that murder their clients to appease their god. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

As the '80s videotape market created an insatiable demand for more movies to rent and more diverse and idiosyncratic tastes to be catered to, the low-budget filmmaker found a new lease on life beyond the drive-in by making direct-to-video product. Although some of the more ambitious low-budget productions would achieve some theatrical and cable channel showings, videotape sales and rentals were essential outlets to make a profit. To get the attention of the video renting audience, producers came up with lurid titles that were as over-the-top as the content of their movies. These productions often strove for a self-aware sense of parody in exploitation excess. No movie epitomizes that approach better than Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers.

Boobs, blood, and baloney are the main ingredients in this simple stew of a film. This movie seems to exist only to justify the attention-getting title. The boobs and the blood are the exploitation ingredients to be found in many low-budget horror films of the time. The baloney is required to provide a reason for hookers in Hollywood to be using chainsaws to kill. Because that baloney is so outrageous, it makes this film a parody of exploitation cinema in general. 

Dawn Wildsmith opens the film as the very first chainsaw hooker we meet. She gives a fine and funny performance that really sets the tone for the whole film. Her character’s rather schizoid personality veers from nonchalant whore to gleeful killer. Later, she acts like a giggling bimbo that we can’t trust for a second. Wildsmith has great comic flair and I really need to see more of her work. 

Two of the main attractions in the low-budget world of '80s genre films appear here. Michelle Bauer (billed here as Michelle McClellan) and Linnea Quigley top the cast of sexy ladies. They are the bad girl and the good girl, respectively. They also co-starred in other productions during this era. Bauer was probably the film’s major selling point as she is the beautiful brunette brandishing a chainsaw on the film’s poster and promotional material. She also is the naked spectacle in the film’s best-remembered scene.

Gunnar Hansen is the stunt casting here. Who better to play the leader of a chainsaw cult than the original Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974)? He gets one of the funniest bits when he introduces “The Virgin Dance of the Double Chainsaws” as if he is an emcee at a talent contest instead of directing a cult ritual. 

It is Jay Richardson’s performance that really holds this simple and silly thing together. His Jack Chandler is a fun throwback to the hard-boiled private eye characters of film noir. He delivers every line with cynical relish and his voice-overs provide some of the best laughs. 

This movie works because it does not violate its loopy sense of reality while we are all too aware of its absurdities. Therefore, we can engage with the characters and situations on two levels: appreciating the sexy and gory shenanigans being investigated by the hard luck hero while knowing that we are being fed exploitation clichés that are barely justified by an outlandish, evil MO. The movie never quite breaks the fourth wall, which is why it still has a bit of charm. 

Co-written, directed, and produced by prolific exploitation filmmaker Fred Olen Ray, Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers manages to be crass and crude at the same time that it lets us all in on the joke. It is probably Ray’s most appreciated film and is great fun for the jaded horror fan looking for a change of pace. The film also performs a public service with a safe sex message that is just as important over thirty years later: If your partner puts on a shower cap in the bedroom before sex, get the hell out of there!