Invasion Of The Bee Girls, d. Denis Sanders (1973)
For a long while, Invasion Of The Bee Girls requires a great deal of perseverance. A patchy story about a series of unexplained deaths in a small town with a large biological research centre, the key point of interest is that the victims are exclusively men, specifically middle aged scientists, most of whom have some form of ingenious and elaborate comb across. Their sudden demise is attributed to being (using the 70s vernacular) 'balled' to death. Are their murders linked to the top secret work they are doing? And isn't the town (brilliantly, called Peckham) notorious for being a swinger's paradise? And why do all the women in town wear such big sunglasses?*
After an hour, however, there is an extraordinary sequence in which a group of very short white coated women perform a strange procedure on a naked, half conscious lady stood in front of a Buckminster Fuller-style geodesic dome made of electrical cable. They bombard her with radiation, smear her in latex, then lock her away in a compartment filled with bees, which cover her entirely. After this, they peel off the plastic and flash her with a heat ray. The soft light and warmth of the light unlocks something sensual within her - and does the same for the other women in the lab - and there is much wistful self-fondling. One lesbian kiss later and the subject's eyes turn completely black. She is now a bee girl. Her mission: to fuck an ugly old scientist to death. The reason: less clear cut, but it has to do with chauvinistic and irresponsible experiments causing female sterility or something.
When the film was released on video in the UK it was re-titled Graveyard Tramps, which only makes me think of cider and public urination.
* The credits read 'Bee Come Beautiful Sunglasses by Foster Grant'.
