Zombeez (2023)

Zombeez (2023). Zombeez: Directed by Elesia Marie. With Ann Marie Crouch, Elesia Marie, Teance Blackburn, Shane Willis. When honeybee hives start dying off and bodies start piling up in a small, Northwest Florida town, the local coroner is forced to team up with the apiologist who left her at the altar years ago, to try to solve this deadly mystery.

“From the title alone, I thought Zombeez might be in wake-of-Sharknado territory. I was pleasantly surprised to discover a much lower key film focused on cuteness, charm, characterisation and good-naturedness.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eDirector Elisia Marie plays Jess Johnson, beekepeeru0026#39;s daughter and the purple-haired coroner of an extraordinarily quiet town in Florida. (If the budget, and circumstances of filming – COVID – are in evidence anywhere, itu0026#39;s in the absence of extras.) When bees start dying for no reason, Jessu0026#39;s awkward-historied ex, now an entomologist, is called in to work the case.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eMarieu0026#39;s performance is almost slowed-down screwball comedy. When the handful of town authority figures start joining her in the investigation, it provokes a bunch of amusing tensions amongst them. Ultimately they get the help of Sheriff Taylor (Teance Blackburn), a less-scary-Grace-Zabriskie-like-woman who breaks out a flamethrower to defend herself from bee harassment in her first scene.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe character bits for random bee victims, like the lady in the car telling her boyfriend, u0026#39;If I say no, it means no. If I move my hand like this, it means no,u0026#39; are good. I wished there were more of them.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe effects are, again, cute. Thereu0026#39;s a hint of Birdemic in the planes of CGI bees seen zooming after people from behind, but unlike in Birdemi, the effects here are always purposeful. Scenes of the entire (small!) cast variously firing guns and flamethrowers at, and swinging baseball bats at, and even kung-fuing, mutant bees out of the air, are pleasingly ridiculous.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe u0026quot;small town solving its problems with a bit of cooperation and scienceu0026quot; theme suits the scale of the film, and gives it a friendlier feel than a lot of headache-inducing recent low-budget monster films. There are no overbearing characters, thereu0026#39;s no screaming, no great loudness or deliberate moments of outrage. The pace is there, but leisurely. The filmu0026#39;s probably still a little long at one hour forty-five, but I enjoyed the whole thing. It was a nice surprise.”