OVP: The Swarm (1978)

Film: The Swarm (1978)
Stars: Michael Caine, Katharine Ross, Richard Widmark, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland, Ben Johnson, Lee Grant, Jose Ferrer, Patty Duke, Slim Pickens, Fred MacMurray, Henry Fonda
Director: Irwin Allen
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Costume Design)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

Typing up the call sheet for The Swarm, you're right initially to be perplexed by this film's reputation.  There are, in fact, seven Oscar winners in The Swarm, seven, making it one of the most decorated casts in the history of Hollywood (seriously-aside from stunt films like The Player or Around the World in 80 Days, you only really have the late-stage Marvel movies like Avengers: Endgame that can come close to a movie like The Swarm).  So seven winners, and that doesn't even count the nominated Katharine Ross & Richard Widmark and screen legend Fred MacMurray in his final role.  So, why exactly is it that The Swarm is considered by so many people to be one of the worst movies ever made?  And how exactly did it get nominated for an Oscar?

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about a group of killer African bees invading Texas.  That's the plot in one sentence, but if you want an expanded one, while the killer bees are invading Texas, initially focusing on one small town and then moving on to Houston, we have two men Dr. Bradford Crane (Caine), assisted by Dr. Walter Krim (Fonda), in a turf battle with a military commander General Slater (Widmark).  Dr. Helena Anderson (Ross) is also there, but naturally becomes nothing more than the romantic interest for Crane, and then we frequently cut to the town, which is focused on a senior citizen love triangle (between de Havilland, MacMurray, & Johnson), and Rita (Duke), who is having a baby.  Almost every one of these characters ends up dying, but in the end Crane (with his new girlfriend by his side) burns all of the bees in the Gulf of Mexico by using their mating call against them.

If you can't tell, this movie is kind of hilariously bad.  The plot is absurd, even in an era where murder hornets feel like they're about to add a true level of ridiculous onto 2020.  Forgetting for a second the sexist treatment of Ross' character, the loopholes and twists in the movie are bizarrely unsatisfying.  The movie has no sense of how a plot is supposed to work, and frequently introduces tension that would normally trigger to an audience "okay, this is something I should be emotionally invested in" without any sort of resolution.

Take, for example, the skepticism of Caine's character coming out of nowhere at the beginning of the picture.  Widmark is suspicious of him, and the ominous Jerry Goldsmith score agrees, but not only does he end being the good guy, we never have a moment where there is a bad guy-it just sort of skates into "we're all in this together" mode without any sort of friction between Caine & Widmark that doesn't last longer than three lines.  De Havilland's character is met with a love triangle, but unlike any other movie, all three characters die before she chooses or even tips her hat to which man she might marry.  And Patty Duke's pregnant mother just sort of shows up, has a baby, and then is never heard from again-what was the point of this character?!?

The movie won one Oscar nomination, and it's not, as you might expect, Visual Effects, but instead Costume Design.  I just don't get why.  The only costumes of any note in this movie are the hazmat suits that seem to be crossed with a beekeeper costume, but there's nothing special about this, and the action happens all in one day, to the point where most characters are wearing maybe 2-3 costumes at most (de Havilland probably has the most costume changes at I think three).  I don't have a problem with Oscar going subtle, but there is almost no precedent for a costuming choice this mundane getting an Oscar nomination, and there were certainly other options that would have been showier (California Suite, The Brink's Job, The Boys from Brazil, The Deer Hunter) and were in films that were Oscar-nominated already.  That The Swarm got in instead is kind of hilarious, but just another confusing aspect to this movie's tale.