1313: Giant Killer Bees!

Okay... I am not sure that I am the right one to review this movie. My twin sister and I have been David DeCoteau fans since the 90s, so we know what we are getting when we watch a DeCoteau film, and, usually, we enjoy it for what it is. All David Decoteau movies are okay, but they have a...catch... that keeps us coming back. That catch is eyecandy engaged in potentially homoerotic exchanges. The problem is, most of DD's movies aren't as homoerotic as they could be.David's older films had better pacing then his 1313 films, but I still enjoy these films for what they are. What are they? Essentially, cute guys walking around in their white boxer briefs, taking showers (sans soap), and engaging in water sports or working out. There's always a token female, though I am not sure why.1313" Giant Killer Bees is your standard "scientists play around with nature, nature bites everyone on the a**" horror movie. The dialogue, acting, and editing issues make the film laughably bad. So, if you are in the mood for beefcake and a few laughs, you might want to give any of the 1313 movies, including Giant Killer Bees, a try.

About a year or so ago I went on a bad DVD buying spree, and among the bargain bin price movies I picked up were a few from David DeCoteau, a director sometimes praised for his outlandish sense of camp. The first two I watched ("90210 Shark Attack!" and "Bigfoot vs. D. B. Cooper") were very similar. After watching them I felt exhausted by the awfulness of the production values and decided to pace myself and wait a year before attempting "1313: Giant Killer Bees!" I don't personally understand the appeal of the 1313 series, but I was at least hoping for some campy fun, and truth bee told (sorry; I couldn't not make that pun), I would have given this an extra half star if Amazon allowed it for the ludicrous bee CGI, which made me laugh out loud several times.Not that plot is particularly important to any of these films, but at least this gets us away from the locations more frequently used by DeCoteau, and was filmed in Puerto Rico, here representing the island of "San Marino", a location outside the purview of meddling health and safety regulators and perfect for giant bee experiments. The film opens with a science type, Professor Bensington (Raine Parsons-Wright) in bandages explaining how he didn't mean to destroy the world, so the rest of the film is told in flashback, technically. One thing I will say for DeCoteau: he really does know how to set up and photograph a shot: his cinematography skills are very strong, and the photography of the locations (particularly the beach and fort) is excellent. The problem comes in stringing the individual snippets together into a coherent movie. Now, I frankly expected a minimum of coherent plot and an excess of padding, and boy was I right! This film is an exercise in padding, and could probably be edited down to a 15-minute short that would be much more interesting and appropriately paced. I'm not exaggerating: the worst offender is when one of the protagonists here wanders around for what seems like forever in the old coastal fort they filmed in. I dare you not to fast forward. Another annoyance, particularly early in the film, is the oppressive dramatic music that overwhelms the soundtrack while nothing dramatic is happening.The point of this experiment (in the most casually run, soccer-intensive lab I have ever seen) is to make honeybees bigger and more durable to increase their pollinating abilities, and to better resist the ravages of global warming. To that end, Bensington's lab is populated by grad students, only one of which is female (Jillian Nelson, who is quite attractive, but a bit out of her element here), and many of which are shirtless, as is the mouthy, bitter janitor. Bensington sends in a guy named Redwood (Derek North) to take charge of the chaos and get results. Once the cast is all assembled, the typical DeCoteau action really gets going: lots of long, lingering shots of young men lounging in their underwear dominate the film. It's also amazing that in such a time-critical emergency how much time is available for long steamy showers (though some may be disappointed that Jillian Nelson never gets her turn for some reason....) I did get a laugh out of the "bee eye vision" effect where the naughty voyeur bee watches the guy napping on his bed for what seems like 50 hours, but is probably realistically closer to five minutes. When the giant CGI bees are finally revealed, you will likely be unable to stop an audible guffaw. The science behind how the bees turn the guys into shower bee vampires is a bit mystifying, but the bee autopsy results (!) will reveal all.Of course the film ends in a race against time as everyone is becoming bee zombie vampires (I guess), and the bees are getting ready to lay their eggs. (Of course they are.) In a positive twist, the film may end a bit differently than you expect and that's an upside, but nothing can change the fact that this is a stultifyingly boring film with no real redeeming graces. Like with some of his other works, this one includes a commentary track with DeCoteau that's marginally more interesting than the film itself, the trailer for this film and also a trailer for "Nightmare Mansion". Rounding out the extras are a few behind the scenes still photographs. This is among the worst of the David DeCoteau films. His obvious focus on marginally clad young men is what his movies have apparently devolved into and if that's not your thing, the cult and camp value will not outweigh that in any way shape, form, or fashion.Is this a bad movie? Yes it is. Is it enjoyably bad? I think not.

There are 4 10 minute scenes of shirtless men rubbing themselves, and 2 13 minute scenes of a dude walking. Very cool. Coomed so hard I could barely finish the movie

boy howdy was i startled! also berp fell asleeplove u bye ;D

This film is unbelievably bad and unbelievably good. An essentially short film was turned into a feature film by extending a few scenes on and on and on for no apparent reason. A hot guy lies down to pleasure himself--touching nothing below the waist, however--and continues doing this for eight full and boring minutes. The main character inexplicably leaves the compound during the climactic crisis and walks endlessly around the island by himself before returning to the compound. And so on. The choppy editing almost gave me epilepsy, and the melodramatic musical score was way over the top. The exterior scenes of the compound showed a huge decrepit building, while the interior shots showed an upscale, modern, and beautifully furnished home.But, when the story was allowed to play out in a few scenes, it was actually rather entertaining in a very, very campy way. The actors were all hunky and handsome young men (plus one young woman) who liked to walk around in identical tighty-whities. The writing and acting weren't all that bad and sometimes even good. If camp is your thing, definitely give it a try.

I never do reviews of movies, nor do I ever cut down a movie. I have seen my fair share of badly acted movies, but always managed to muscle through them if the story seems alright. Well this movie is the exception to my rule. First, the acting is worse than the worst acted movie I have ever seen. I felt as though the actors were just going through the motions, not caring if they got it right or not. Then the second thing is that half naked men are thrown at us constantly. First time was a 20 minute scene(nothing to do with the movie)of a muscle gut lying in bed in his underwear, rubbing his chest and stomach. What!! Must of needed some filler for this reject of a movie. Then we go to another guy rubbing himself in a shower. Finally after that more bad acting, then another naked guy in a shower. By this point I was fed up. I turned off the movie and realized that I only paid $1.00 for the movie. It potentially had promise, but just couldn't get us into the attended premise of the movie. Too much nonsense partial nudity and not enough plot.

It was horrible I loved it

I liked it played but it wasn't the best movie, I have seen about bee's. Very disappointed but it's my fault that I didn't like this movie

These are very hot men, especially the one in the shower, who has one of the guys run his fingers down his back. The plot and acting were good in this one.

I’m happy with my dvd! It wasn’t like we thought it would be but it was still ok to watch! Definitely not the best of movie/film that me and my fiancée have seen and we’ve watched alot over the years as we both have really large collections! It’s ideal to watch if you just want to watch something and there’s nothing on tv but i wouldn’t go out of my way to buy this film/movie! X

This is completely ludricus - there is nothing to say anything about the killer bees and if you want to watch someone walk around an island and also a fort that is about the highlight of this O.M.G. movie - don't waste your money - I like campy movies but this is just too much