You know you're heading into a quality production when they release a promotional image where one of the actresses blinked. That's good enough-attitude seemingly spells doom for Honey Bee. Then again my version for review is 69 minutes and still got the nudity intact so the movie seems to be winning beforehand too. Plus a good amount of budget is spent making a gooey, sometimes disgusting horror movie. Sometimes the III holds surprises.
A man down on his luck receives a box he's asked not to open in exchange for good luck and wealth. Eventually it is opened and the devil inside is let loose in a small town. Infecting and hopping from body to body. Only hope is a Taoist priest and an elf residing in a protective jade...
With an early sign of a low budget sea monster and crude but effective wounds done by the make-up department, Honey Bee is as much the unexpected production as it is the transparent one as the 69 minutes divides its time between said darkness and easy in's into the sellable element of sex scenes. While shot on suitably well designed sets for the period setting, the passion and erotica is stale (and sometimes shot with one static camera without cuts for 30-40 seconds). Only spice and eye raising moments that exists within these are the switches to the ongoing infection that keeps traveling between characters. Often characterized by green slime and pulsating boils.
This is far from stale and while never reaching any Nam Nai-Choi levels in terms of energetic weirdness, the filmmakers do seem inspired and energetic when getting to indulge in the fair to laughably cheap special effects. Floating skulls on wires biting necks of humans is clearly a b-movie technique that's embraced here. It's neither tense nor classic horror but its insistent nature and execution makes us forget about sexy aspect to it all. That is the true strength of Honey Bee.
reviewed by Kenneth Brorsson
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