Shock By Incredible Shock

'The Strange World Of Planet X' ('Cosmic Monsters' in the US) is a lot of fun. When a nutty scientist (played by the superbly named Alec Mango) invents a machine which produces evil magnetic rays it not only turns the spiders and insects in the area into massive, human hungry monsters, but attracts the attention of advanced lifeforms from another planet who pop down to Earth to tell us to cut it out, stop messing around, leave it.

Sort of 'The Day The Earth Stood Still' if it had been filmed in Hertfordshire on a tenth of the budget, it's occasionally on late night terrestrial TV, and would be on more if I had anything to do with it (I don't, so please send your angry letters elsewhere).

The Strange World of Planet X

The Smell Of Fear

'The Deadly Bees' isn't trash, but it's trashily done. The always awful Suzanna Leigh plays a (terrible) pop star who is advised a rest cure after collapsing in a TV studio. She needs to sack her travel agent though, as she ends up in the middle of nowhere surrounded by a cast of sinister characters, thousands of murderous flying insects and a scientist experimenting with 'the smell of fear'...   

Left to their own devices, I'm sure director Freddie Francis and scriptwriter Robert Bloch ('Psycho', 'Asylum') could have come up with something halfway decent, perhaps even quite good, but shoddy special effects and poor performances relegate this Amicus production to the lower strata of the bee movie b movie.

The Deadly Bees