cult film freak: SUZANNA LEIGH, FRANK FINLAY & KATY WILD IN 'THE DEADLY BEES'

Suzanna Leigh in THE DEADLY BEES Year: 1966 Rating: ****

By the time British redhead Katy Wild (reunited with director Freddie Francis after THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN) attempts running frantically away from a horde of DEADLY BEES raised and kept by initially subtle antagonist Frank Finlay, lead starlet Suzanna Leigh... as a burnt-out pop star on sabbatical in the rural farmhouse next door... has spent most of the movie figuring out who instead of what, making DEADLY more a slow-burn mystery than the kind of violent body-count thriller that many other killer-insect vehicles would progress into...

With a cast also including handsome cad Guy Doleman, whose house Leigh's staying in, and barkeeper (and Hammer regular) Michael Ripper, whose daughter is played by Wild and, working as a maid for Doleman... and as much as dad worries... she's got no chance against Finlay's impending (and vengeful) killer bug army...

Katy Wild in THE DEADLY BEES

Yet by the time they start getting really DEADLY the picture's almost finished... so the build-up is pretty much everything here... mostly consisting of insanely gorgeous Suzanne Leigh figuring things out by befriending the culprit Finlay and not trusting the guilty-seeming Doleman...

As the only truly dated scenes are the inevitable money shots of the bees flying around, looking so superimposed (failing to imitate THE BIRDS) it's downright distracting but, within this otherwise impressive-looking production, here's one b-movie that's better than future bee movies that lack a great story behind all the buzzing around.