KILLER BEES (1974)

Gloria Swanson and her little darlings

KILLER BEES (1974). Director: Curtis Harrington.

Semi-estranged from his family, who own vineyards as well as a town, Edward van Bohlen (Edward Albert) brings his pregnant fiancee, Victoria (Kate Jackson), home to meet the family. This consists of his father, Rudolf (Craig Stevens), brother Helmut (Roger Davis of House of Dark Shadows), and Uncle Matthias (Don McGovern), not to mention his grandmother-matriarch Mrs. van Bohlen (Gloria Swanson). Victoria has a hard time being accepted by the van Bohlens, and matters are made worse by attacks from bees swarming all over the vineyards. Seems the van Bohlens have a strange connection to the bees that came with the family decades ago from Africa. Given bizarre roles to play, both Jackson [Night of Dark Shadows] and Swanson [Beyond the Rocks] manage to acquit themselves nicely, with the latter clearly enjoying herself as she puts on a rather hammy show at times. The movie could easily have been called Queen Bee if it hadn't already been used for a Joan Crawford movie. The bees themselves never actually seem to "attack" anyone but there is a macabre climax in the mansion's attic. Curtis Harrington also directed Queen of Blood.

Verdict: If you take the absurd developments with a grain of salt, this is one of Harrington's better latter-day movies. ***.

DEATH CRUISE

Kate Jackson and Edward Albert

DEATH CRUISE (1974 telefilm). Director: Ralph Senensky.

Three couples have won an all-expenses-paid, three week cruise on an ocean liner. Sylvia Carter (Polly Bergen) is distressed by her husband Jerry's (Richard Long) philandering. Elizabeth Mason (Celeste Holm) is concerned that her children are grown and may not need her, and then learns that her husband (Tom Bosley) wonders if there's any point in their even staying married. Mary (Kate Jackson of Making Love) is bitterly disappointed when her husband James (Edward Albert) insists that he doesn't want children. Then one by one all of them begin dying. The ship's doctor (Michael Constantine) discovers that the company which paid for the three couple's cruises doesn't even exist. Screenwriter Jack B. Sowards channels his inner Agatha Christie to come up with a suspenseful, twisting, and diabolical plot, and all of the actors do their best to bring their characters to life as well as to conceal who may or may not be behind it all. Everyone is good, but Holm [All About Eve] and Long [Follow the Boys] make the best impression. Albert and Jackson also played a couple in the previous year's Killer Bees.

Verdict: Absorbing TV puzzler well worth the watching for mystery fans. ***.

BUTTERFLY

Pia Zadora and Orson Welles -- in the same movie!

BUTTERFLY (1982). Director: Matt Cimber.

In 1937 at the Arizona-Nevada border Kady Tyler (Pia Zadora) comes to live with the father she never knew, a man named Jess (Stacy Keach), who is the caretaker for an abandoned silver mine. Despite their biological connection, Kady and Jess are drawn to one another, something which bothers Jess but doesn't seem to bother the much too free-spirited Kady. Kady's dying mother, Belle (Lois Nettleton), comes calling, along with the man Belle ran off with, Moke Blue (James Franciscus). Then there's Wash Gillespie (Edward Albert), the son of the owner of the mine, and the father of Kady's baby and her fiance. How far will Jess go to get Kady for himself -- and is she really his daughter? Butterfly certainly holds the attention with its intriguing if bizarre situations, as well as some very good acting. Keach takes top honors, with Nettleton a close second, and Franciscus [Youngblood Hawke] also scores in some emotional scenes inside the mine. Pia Zadora [Hairspray] is not bad at all, although one couldn't necessarily call her a great actress -- her pouty looks and attitude fit the part. Orson Welles, of all people, shows up as a judge at two separate trials involving Kady and Jess, and is very effective and amusing. Edward Albert [Galaxy of Terror] is fine as Kady's boyfriend, and in one brief scene June Lockhart and Ed McMahon [!] play his parents -- McMahon is no actor. Stuart Whitman, however, makes his mark as a preacher. This forgotten movie is based on a novel by James M. Cain.

Verdict: Twisted, but interesting, love story. ***.

GALAXY OF TERROR aka MINDWARP

A touchy-feely alien gets another victim

GALAXY OF TERROR (aka Mindwarp/1981). Director: Bruce D. Clark. Produced by Roger Corman.

"There's no horror here we don't create ourselves."

A spaceship is sent to a distant planet to see if they can find the survivors of the last expedition. What they find are the remains of the spaceship, some weird creepy-crawly aliens that attach themselves to their body parts, and a giant pyramid-like structure in which they are stalked by half-seen creatures and must confront their own fears. This is an old idea -- astronauts bedeviled by materializations of their own terrors -- but it's also an obvious copy of Alien. The movie has surprisingly good production design, courtesy of James Cameron [later famous as the director of Titanic] and Robert Skotak, and an interesting cast, including Edward Albert, Erin Moran, the ever-brooding Zalman King, Ray Walston as a cook with secrets, Robert Englund [Nightmare on Elm Street], Sid Haig as an astronaut who's murdered by his own severed arm, and Grace Zabriskie as a kind of butch captain, sole survivor of something called the Hesperus disaster (as if any vessel would be named after a famous shipwreck!).  Taffee O'Connell is pursued by a maggot grown to giant size that seems more interested in tearing off her clothing and licking her naked body than it is in eating her. Despite some fairly impressive sequences and decent acting, Galaxy of Terror has a cheapjack look and feel to it, and while not awful, it's not that memorable, either.

Verdict: One of the better Alien imitations, so you can imagine how awful some of the others were. **1/2.