Swarmed is set in the small Southern Indiana town of Dundas where an annual best burger cook off competition is fast approaching, mega rich businessman Phineas Washburn (Tim Thomerson) is sponsoring the event & local mayor Darel Gibson (Christopher Bondy) can just see the dollar signs in his eyes so doesn't want anything to spoil the cook off. However at genetics laboratory MGA scientist Kenth Horvath (Michael Shanks) is developing a new pesticide, the one Kent has developed has the unwanted side effect of increasing the toxicity of Wasp's he's testing it on. Idiot night janitor (John Baktis) accidentally lets a couple of the genetically altered Wasp's go & they sting him to death & one escapes the laboratory. Then idiot Wasp exterminator Q (Richard Chevolleau) uses the new pesticide to try & destroy a Wasp nest which also turns them into genetically altered killers that can kill with one sting, with the cook off happening & hundreds of people attending Kent & entomologist Cristina Brown (Carol Alt) must find a way to stop the swarm...
This Canadian production was directed by Paul Ziller & is your typical standard 'Creature Feature' fare the likes of which the Sc-Fi Channel churn out with monotonous regularity, while not the worst example of it's numerous kind Swarmed isn't really anything to get excited about & seasoned 'Creature Feature' watchers will be throughly bored by it. All the usual clichés are here, a genetically altered creature of some sort, a misguided scientist, the hero expert, the city official, the greedy town Mayor who doesn't want a scandal so doesn't warn anyone, some annoying comedy relief black character & some news reporter. It's all here like the laboratory accident that sets the menace loose, the town gathering where lots of potential victims are located as said menace lurks nearby & in the end all the bad people get killed & all the good people live even though it was a combination of these so called good people that got the ball rolling in the first place as it were. There's also a metaphor for the state of the world as it is, the thick black guy is told in no uncertain terms not to use the pesticide in the red bottles yet he still does anyway, that in a nutshell is why the world is so messed up folks. At 90 odd minutes not enough happens, it takes ages for Swarmed to get going & then it never really comes to life with small scale attacks & people just generally running around doing nothing in particular.
The film looks alright, it has decent production values & seems fairly competent although my eyes had glazed over & my brain had all but shut-down by the half hour mark. Swarmed doesn't even feature that much gore, there are a few dead bodies with Wasp stings & a shot of a Wasp stinging someone's eyeball who is seen later with his eye missing. There are some odd moments too as a mad secretary uses a double barrelled shotgun to kill one Wasp (after she has hunted it) in a ridiculous scene. The CGI computer effects are poor, it's quite amazing that in 2005 the makers of Swarmed couldn't convincingly reproduce a swarm of Wasp's which is just basically lots of little black dots flying in the air.
This was made for telly & it shows with no blood, gore, profanity or nudity. Although set in the US this was filmed in Ontario in Canada. The cast look bored & the acting isn't great especially from the really annoying Q who has nothing to do with the James Bond films.
Swarmed is yet another 'Creature Feature' with all the usual clichés & bad CGI computer effects, definitely one to avoid.
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