The Deadly Swarm

Desperate for some extra money, a group of broke college students signs up for an experimental drug trial run by an eccentric doctor at a remote house, but when they realize the whole thing is a setup to test a special serum by a rare breed of fly he's found must find a way to escape alive.

On the whole, there's just not a whole lot to this one. Among the few positives to this one is the central setup that has a decent enough means of getting everything started in this type of film. The whole secretive drug trial test that they're set up to accomplish is a convenient enough oil for everything while also getting enough motivation to undertake the study with the reasoning to get the insect studied that they're unwitting subjects for. As that leads into the film's series of solid and cheesy yet inherently cliched attack scenes of the massive swarm of flies running loose in the facility and taking out the various guests one by one, it creates a fun measure of action along the later stages once the main bug has been released and bringing the swarming minions along to help provide some tense encounters. These manage to make for a few general positives to be had here. Beyond this, though, there's a multitude of problems with the film. One of the biggest factors against it is the wholly illogical and moronic storyline that manages to come off far more insulting than anything. Despite the whole idea of trying to use the experiment to illicitly examine a way to stop a deadly disease that took his wife's life, what we're expected to believe about how this operates is bordering on insulting which is immensely obvious and distressing. Rather than taking place in any kind of sterile, clinical-style building, this one expects the group to stay at a random house remotely in the woods with nothing even close to looking legit or official in any capacity. Moreover, there are so many red flags exhibited about the doctor's behavior or the sketchiness of the assistant that brings about a desire to leave immediately that it just doesn't make sense how it all gets ignored with them staying sound. That doesn't help much that there's such a dearth of action that it's nearly impossible to care about anything happening here anyway. This one goes on so long with endless prattle about the groups' broken state of monetary affairs, the interconnecting storylines about why they're going through the motions with the experiment, or the wimpy assistant trying to blame the others for why no one wants to hang out with him that it just feels like an eternity before anything happens. The creature action is confined to such late stages of the film that it's not that interesting at all getting through the land discussions to get to the cheesy attacks as that isn't interesting nor are the attacks fun with the cheesy action undone by flimsy effects and laughable monster creations. It all makes for a draining and terrible experience.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Language.

Right, well when I sat down to watch the 2024 movie "The Deadly Swarm", from writer and director David Gregory, I have to say that I wasn't exactly expecting a whole lot. The movie's cover was just oozing with a low budget, questionable feel.

And with "The Deadly Swarm" being a movie that I had never heard about, nor watched, of course I opted to sit down and give it a chance, on the off chance that it would prove to be a great movie.

The storyline in the movie was rubbish. Writer and director David Gregory just didn't impress me one bit here, and it was so insanely generic, predictable and bland that it was hard to sit through the movie. And truth be told, I actually dozed off shortly before halfway through the movie. And when I came to about halfway through the movie, I was still up to speed with the narrative.

Needless to say that I wasn't familiar with the cast ensemble in "The Deadly Swarm". The acting performances were somewhat fair, for the most parts. However, it should be noted that you're not in for anything grand here.

Visually then "The Deadly Swarm" was rubbish. The CGI animated insects were laughable to look at, and had zero realistic feel to them, making it even more difficult to take the movie serious.

If you enjoy horror movies with killer insects, then "The Deadly Swarm", from writer and director David Gregory, is not a movie that I would recommend you to waste 81 minutes on watching.

My rating of "The Deadly Swarm" lands on a two out of ten stars.