The Wasp Woman (1959)

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Don't listen to the negative reviews

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Copyright 1959 by The Filmgroup/Santa Cruz. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release through The Filmgroup: October 1959. U.K. release through Grand National: March 1960. Banned in Australia. 73 minutes. Censored in the U.K. to 62 minutes. SYNOPSIS: The success of a leading cosmetics film has been built on the personal beauty of the firm's founder, but now that Miss Starlin is approaching forty, sales are falling. In desperation she turns to a scientist who claims to have perfected a formula of youth extracted from wasp enzymes.COMMENT: Although it starts slowly, The Wasp Woman gradually builds up into a suspenseful little shocker. True, the wasp make-up is not always particularly convincing, but otherwise the effects reveal considerable skill. In Miss Cabot's case, this expertise is ably abetted by skilful lighting and brooding camerawork. Katz's waspy music score also rates as a major contribution. Corman capably makes the most of an obviously limited budget. His slow pacing of the earlier scenes reaps its reward in a really stunning climax. Susan Cabot's admirable portrait of an executive under pressure is disarmingly realistic. The other players are suitably supportive, though Corman himself as a silent (at least on the screen) if patient investigator holds up the action.

Did Roger Corman do the original "Little Shop of Horrors"? I'll have to check. As predictable as a soap opera. A bumbling (not quite mad) scientist invents a youth serum that turns test animals and people into giant fuzzy mutant wasps that buzz. Cabot wears a hairy fright mask with curly "antennae" and sucks several victims dry. It's supposed to eat 'em too which saves a ton on special effects.A shameless steal from "The Fly". A human with an unintentionally funny face. Giant claws like a lobster. It could have been much more horrible if the results had been shown on camera. A flattened dead body in a web or rolled up like old toothpaste. It evokes memories of every awful-stupid horror movie from Gabor's "Queen of Outer Space" to the more recent "Cat Woman". Women seeking the fountain of youth always turn left at the wrong exit. Fun but not really that wonderful. Hardly worth viewing twice. When I was a kid, this actually scared me to death on the big screen. Remade at least twice by other studios and many variations on TV as well. (Remember the "Outer Limits" episode where a pretty girl is actually a transformed queen bee and wants to "mate" with a human male?)

Long before Olivia de Havilland warned us that a swarm of killer bees were coming our way, and a few years after the public at large fled from "The Deadly Mantis", the staff of a beauty supply company must deal with "The Wasp Woman", unknowingly their big boss, who has been surprising them recently with her sudden youth-creating beauty. Actress Susan Cabot is made to look "old" (sans make-up and with large framed glasses) as the creator of a line of beauty products which no longer work for her. She decides to be the human experiment of a scientist obsessed with wasp jelly which makes an old lab mouse young and turns an old cat back into a kitten. Unfortuanately, thanks to the sudden attack of the no longer friendly kitty, the scientist learns that his wasp jelly has serious side effects, turning the creature who takes it into a wasp-like creature, attacking the nearest victim and literally eating them from inside out. But before he can warn Cabot, he is hit by a car, and pretty soon, she is having flashes of the demon inside her, all the while desperate to take more youth-creating jelly in order to remain youthful.A combination of genuine horror and camp, this is also a very moralistic tale of how the obsession with youth can literally destroy one's soul. Cabot's loveliness in real life isn't hidden by the dowdy way she is clothed and made up in the open scenes (it's funny how lack of make-up and ugly glasses are always used in movies and on T.V. to indicate plainness), and she is publicly humiliated in a meeting with fellow executives and her secretary of how by remaining cover girl for her own product, she has caused the sales of the product to go down. It doesn't help that she's surrounded by younger secretaries and clerks who are quite voluptuous and often comment behind her back (which she somehow manages to overhear) on her looks.While it is insinuated by the bee keepers in the very first scene that scientist Michael Mark is quite mad, he never really shows serious signs of that, although his obsession with angry wasps over the usually man friendly bees is quite odd. His performance is basically very subtle, especially in the scenes following his accident. Other good performances come from William Roerick as one of Cabot's executives, Anthony Eisley as another employee and Barboura Morris as Cabot's devoted secretary. The film really doesn't explode into horror until the final quarter, but it is still interesting to see how it develops.

This movie is really long on plot development and relationships. The acting wasn't really that bad but the whole film was lame. You have the board member, the one with some science background, running around with a pipe in his mouth most of the time. I guess that was to make him seem smarter. You have the female company owner in search of youth. Some side show secretaries that really are not germane to the movie at all. It takes a long time for this film to get to the so called horror part. When it gets there it is bad, bad, bad. The owner has been taking royal jelly injections from queen wasps. So guess what she turns in to a hybrid human/wasp. Kills a few people and gets killed in the end. Not a good movie.