Apiphobia and Spheksophobia -- Everybody Has A Phobia -- I Have Two!

Spheksophobia - fear of wasps

Apiphobia - Fear of bees












I watched a movie last night called The Swarm.  It was released in 1978 by Irwin Allen as the disaster movie of the year, and it was a disaster.  The cast consisted of - wait for it -Michael Caine, Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Fred MacMurray, Jose Ferrer,  Richard Chamberlain, and Olivia deHavilland.  It is my guess that all of them had gambling debts to pay off, and didn't want a visit from Rocko and Luca late some night.  I can't think of any other reason these actors would be in this movie, especially Olivia!  I also can't think of any sane reason why I would watch it.  However, I was tired and lazy last night, and just watched what was on because the remote was on my desk, all the way across the room.

I have a paralyzing fear of bees and wasps.  It's so bad that all I have to hear is hummm and bzzzzz and my heart starts racing, perspiration breaks out on my forehead and I can hardly move.  I don't know where it came from -- I was stung a few times as a kid, like any other kid, no big deal.  But there it is nonetheless.  I'm too scared to even swat at them, so I keep a can of sticky hair spray around.  Aqua Net is best -- use that stuff on your hair and you have an impenetrable helmet.  If you spray the buzzing thing with it, their wings get stuck and they fall like a stone.  Then you can use a big book (I use my Complete Works of William Shakespeare) and squash them.  One time, though, a particularly large wasp took refuge in the runners of my sliding glass door.  So I sprayed him right there, probably using the last of my Aqua Net.  I don't think he died of sticky wings -- I think he drowned.  If I were a Buddhist, I'd be excommunicated, or whatever Buddhists do.
  


I guess my honey-scented shampoo
wasn't such a good idea

The story of The Swarm is very complicated - African bees make their way to Houston and try to kill everybody.  The End.  Actually, the key characters finally figure out how to get rid of the little buzzers, at least the characters that were left after various disgusting bee deaths.  I won't ruin the ending for you in case you want to see a really terrible movie for yourself.

I think I'm allergic
to this facial mask!

In 1967, moviegoers were treated to The Deadly Bees.  I never heard of anybody in it, except Frank Finlay, who is an excellent actor.  Maybe he had an unexpectedly high electric bill when he took the role.  I've never seen it, don't know what method was used to kill the bees, and actually don't really care.  If the writer took a cue from a lot of monster movies, he may have used electricity to do it.  I've always wondered why the military doesn't just electrocute all movie monsters, considering how many times it has been proved to be the only solution.

Wasps!


Come on over here, big boy!

Such a pretty little thing!

Now we turn to wasps.  I don't know of many wasp movies, although I'm sure they are out there somewhere.  The main movie I know of is actually one of my favorite cheesy Roger Corman movies, The Wasp Woman (1959).  Maybe I like it in spite of my phobia is because it is so unrealistic, except for the few parts that show real wasps.  Susan Cabot is unintentionally hilarious as the woman who wants to look young by taking some mad scientist's wasp serum.  She should have just stuck with Oil of Olay.  The poster is completely misleading.  Our wasp woman is Susan Cabot with a wasp head stuck over her own.  It's pretty funny.  But, I just love this movie!

A very disturbing thing happened in 1995.  Somebody actually did a remake of The Wasp Woman.  The filmmaker strikes me as a rather odd guy.  I never saw it, don't know where to find it, and sincerely doubt that it could possibly be better than Corman's movie.  I will say, however, that the wasp costume is pretty cool:

This is the maker of the film.  He decided to play the wasp
woman himself, and thought that modern audiences would
enjoy a more ample bosom with some serious cleavage. 

This is just a picture of a totally insane person trying to break a record for how long a person can stand still with 200,000 bees covering his body -- he needs a fire hose turned on him:

After reading this article, it should not surprise you that this is my favorite movie about bees or wasps:

Environmentalists, please do not chide me.  I know how important
bees are to the natural world.  But if one gets in my house,
he will nonetheless die a horrible, sticky death


If you don't care for my little piece, just don't say anything.
I also suffer from enissophobia!