Creature features have come a long way since the black and white, fully practical effects decades of the 1960’s and 1970’s. As most creatures do, they’ve managed to survive several generations – mostly through the technological advances with CGI, and are currently killing the SyFy Network’s movie line-up every summer. They’ve also become fairly punny in recent years, too. Sharknado, Zombeaver… And now Tsunambee. Another disaster movie with giant bees as the main culprit. America is plagued by a series of violent events that leave it in ruin, a wasteland on the verge of Mad Max territory. Survivors that were lucky enough to leave the major cities are struggling to survive without resources, but that’s not the only problem. Due to lack of vegetation, honey bees have gotten bigger, stronger… and hungrier! The only thing that can quench their appetite now is human flesh. You’re going to need a bigger fly swatter!
Anyone who’s ever read one of my reviews on this subject material knows that, though highly critical at times, I have a soft spot for terrible creature features. Despite their many flaws, I can’t help but to find them highly entertaining and they bring back fond summer memories of watching these types of movies with my friends. Nostalgia, if you will. I was super excited when I received my screener of Tsunambee because it felt like a fated start to the hotter months of 2017, a perfectly timed event that preys on one of our silliest fears. I mean, really, raise your hand if you’re still afraid of getting stung by bees! Unfortunately, Tsunambee is a movie where I have a lot more negative criticisms to offer than any sort of praise. This boils down to two major points: taking itself way too seriously and not capitalizing on a gold mine idea.
To start, the pacing is absolutely terrible. Some shots linger too long and some shots are boring. And I’m not just talking about scene length, either. Important plot points happen out of the blue without any build-up or suspense. At the very beginning a group of scientists is in the forest and wander up to giant beehives like “oh, look. giant bees.” Because that’s always a completely normal thing that happens every day, right? Then, the group of survivors Tsunambee focuses on leave the city in less than five minutes and are thrown into a random gunfight even quicker. This is how the rest of the movie goes, with all the developments and changes happening with a flash-bang and not enough character development to fill in the blanks. It’s almost akin to an out of shape marathon runner sprinting to the finish like. Start, run, stop, run, stop, run, stop, run, random finish. And what sucks the most about this is that the team behind Tsunambee could have done so much more with this time than filler scenes. They could have given more focus to how the bees mutated, more focus to the group of survivors fleeing the city, and more focus on what the viewer is looking for – fun. It’s nice that Tsunambee didn’t fit the typical cut-and-past script that The Asylum plays by, but gosh, this is such a missed opportunity for action-packed wacky, funny, CGI goodness.
When it comes to taking itself too seriously, this can be seen with all the bad over-acting, especially from one of the leads. Tsunambee isn’t the type of movie where you need emotional punches to your gut and tears streaming down your face. Honestly, any horror viewer who picks this up is going to be on the look out for a B-movie good time and that’s it. Trying to paint a deeper picture with a movie about giant bees attacking a destroyed American rural field isn’t the right venue for deep emotions and over-acting. Some scenes needed a definite chill pill, especially when the actors didn’t have the chops to back up such powerful dialogue. Also, Mr. Milko Davis. If you do a take and your actors say “um,” then it’s time to redo the shot. That is a glaring amateur mistake. Tsunambee added in an old fashion police officer and a gangster and a lot of interaction between their walks of life. It just… didn’t fit. The social and cultural relevance was unneeded IN A MOVIE ABOUT GIANT BEES ATTACKING PEOPLE! Once the zombies and religious subplots game in I was about done paying attention. All of the points I mentioned above zapped all the fun out of this one.
And let me not forget to mention another huge blunder: the fact that Tsunambee doesn’t capitalize on bees having stingers. All of the deaths in the movie happen off screen or they feature a character being bum-rushed and squashed by the giant bees. You never see a character get stung to death or impaled by a giant bee stinger. This was mind-boggling to me because this could have greatly increased the value of Tsunambee with practical effects death sequences of victims being gored on huge stingers. You wouldn’t make a shark movie without people being getting bitten. You wouldn’t make a scorpion movie without people getting pinched. Why, oh why, would you make a movie about bees without people getting stung?
Tsunambee is written and directed by Milko Davis with assistant director Thomas Martwick. Markus Parachini served as cinematographer and Denise Lemaire and Charlie Aligaen produced. Lead and supporting cast members include Stacy Pedersen, Ruselis Aumeen Perry, Maria Decoste, Charlie Aligaen, Shale Le Page, Aaron Goodman, Jeff Pedersen and Thea Saccoliti. It had the potential to be a great throw-back film that creature feature enthusiasts would have enjoyed, but it missed the mark on every occasion. I’m going to warn you to avoid this one. Sorry, guys. Major let down. Final Score: 3.5 out of 10.
