Black Swarm Film

Deputy Sheriff Jane Kozik and daughter Kelsey Kozik have returned to Jane’s childhood home town of Black Stone. This is brought about after the death of Kelsey’s father who was killed removing a bee hive from a local homeowner. Black Stone is described as being a sleepy little town where everyone knows each other. The town’s slogan is even “The Township of Good Neighbors.” Unfortunately, unbeknownst to the quaint little town they are about to have a few hundred thousand more neighbors when a swarm of genetically enhanced bees take refuge in the quaint little township.

The genetically enhanced bees come from a failed secret military experiment operated by local townsman Eli, played by actor Robert Englund, most famous for portraying the knife gloved ghost killer Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare on Elm Street films.

Unlike normal bees, Eli’s bees do not maintain a solitary nest, instead they are able to switch from nest to nest including taking refuge in within a human host. Once the bees have begun to nest within in the human hosts, the humans become drone like, like many of the worker bees, almost zombie like. The bees can cause the humanoid drones to due their bidding, including attacking and killing other people.

This creates quite the panic as several of the townspeople begin to die as a result, causing the need of a special entomologist to be called in to consult on the case.

Very soon Deputy Sheriff Jane Kozik and Jane’s brother-in-law and identical twin to her recently deceased husband, Devlin begin to chip away at the government conspiracy, discovering Eli’s secret and who he has been working for. Eli, meanwhile, has been wracking his brain trying to figure out what happened to his swarm when he begins to realize that the old tricks, including a dog whistle, and pheromone enhanced peaches just are not working any more in calming the bees down. Meanwhile, even more trouble arises for Eli and Jane when Kelsey unwittingly eats one of the enhanced peaches causing the swarm to revere Kelsey as the new queen bee, and the swarm will do anything to protect its queen.

Black Swarm is less flat out horror film and more of a nature anomaly sort of film. The tension usually felt in a horror film is absent in Black Swarm. It is not your typical flee or face certain death film in that sense, although there is certainly plenty of instances in the film. However, the film seems more like a social commentary on what could potentially happen, albeit in a hyperbole sort of way, if we as humans continue to genetically alter nature.

Black Swarm does seem to struggle quite a bit in the plot area. It lacks focus and tries too hard to inject the film with heart creating the sordid past between Jane and Devlin and the forced plot twists in the subplot. The film certainly could have used a lot more Robert Englund too who is the only really fun and interesting character in the film.

Source : http://www.realmovienews.com/reviews/movies/3864