The Swarm (film)

The Swarm is a 1978 disaster film about a killer bee invasion of Texas. It was adapted from a novel of the same name by Arthur Herzog.

The director was Irwin Allen, and the cast included Michael Caine, Katharine Ross, Richard Widmark, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland, Ben Johnson, Lee Grant, Patty Duke, Slim Pickens, Bradford Dillman, Fred MacMurray, and Henry Fonda.

Many filmgoers and critics consider this film one of the worst "disaster films" ever made, along with Allen's subsequent films Beyond the Poseidon Adventure and When Time Ran Out (1980). It was one of two disaster films directed solely by the "master of disaster", Irwin Allen (the other being 1979's Beyond the Poseidon Adventure), who had experience directing several movies and many episodes of his TV shows. The film was a notorious box office bomb upon its release in 1978, barely making it two weeks in theaters.

Running times

The film was released initially at 116 minutes. When released on laserdisc in the 1980's, it was expanded to 156 minutes. This 156 minute version is the one available on DVD.

The Score

While the film has been notoriously panned for being one of the worst films ever made, the musical score, by Academy Award winner Jerry Goldsmith, has been widely considered one of the composer's best. Trend setting and triumphant, Goldsmith's score not only adds tension by sounding french horns and such to sound like the humming of bees, but covers the wide range of emotion and puts to audio what should have been felt in the film. Many believe listening to the score is in itself like watching the movie, because you can feel the movie listening to Goldsmith's score.

The score was originally released on Warner Bros. Records in 1978 at the same time of the movie, but has since gone out of print. An expanded, remastered score was released in a limited edition from the famous internet company Prometheus Records that contained over forty minutes of previously unreleased material. This has now also gone out of print.

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