Black Swarm

I was out of town for a couple of days and missed a few movies from my list.   But I’m home again now and back to the horror movies.  

I’ve watched a lot of bad movies over the years, low-budget movies with lousy special effects and talentless actors, movies directed by film-makers who make Ed Wood Jr. and Colman Francis look like auteurs.  Sometimes you get lucky and one of those creature-feature B movies actually turns out to be something interesting.  This is not the case with the Canadian made for television movie Black Swarm (2007).

It begins as a horror movie should, with a plausible premise that plays on the fears of the age.  And this fear isn’t a new one, it’s a fear that’s been exploited by story tellers for as long as there have been scary stories: the fear of man’s works turned against him, of science and technology (that could be used for the good and prosperity of mankind) being turned into agents of destruction and death. And the genetically altered weaponized wasps of Black Swarm that turn their victims into zombie-esque drones and breeding hosts make for a particularly nasty type of monster. 

While it begins well, the movie fails as most B-movies do.  Around the 45 minute mark it starts to go a little weird, and after 1 hour it’s spiraled off into a buzzing incomprehensibility.  The characters behave in an inexplicable manner, there are chasms in the plot – let’s not call them “holes.”  Even horror veteran Robert Englund starring as the basement dwelling ‘mad-scientist’ can’t bring this movie anywhere near scary, let alone social commentary.

But what if it had been different?  What if the director had been able to make a compelling story from this premise?    

The story takes place in the fictional town of Blackstone, New York – a town name that brings to mind the English jurist, William Blackstone, whose Commentaries on the Laws of England  helped to codify English common law into a just and fair system applicable to all citizens.  Without law, without justice there is only chaos.   The movie has plenty of chaos, and even though one of the protagonists is a sheriff (deputy sheriff, actually) there’s very little application of legitimate law. 

Late in the film we’re told that the weaponized wasps are the result of one of those “secret government programs” to develop biological weapons.  The only problem is that they’re unable to distinguish friend from foe.  The wasps, once agitated will attack anyone in the area, and since they are all but indestructible, it’s impossible (except for the film’s heroes) to stop them.  Here again is potential for great story telling, and for great social commentary. … Something about great power and great responsibility, perhaps?  Or …he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword? 

I wish that this could have been one of those lucky finds, one of those creature-features that rises above the rest of the snarling and growling beasties. Black Swarm is a movie with promethean potential but… that’s all.  Potential.