In the U.S., this movie played TV. But in the UK, it was in theaters, where people could be as freaked out as I was when I was four and had to watch bees cover a VW Bug and sting people of all ages, shapes and sizes.

It was the movie that Guerdon Trueblood made after The Candy Snatchers, so obviously he’s all about punching the audience in the head, heart and gut. He also wrote Tarantulas: The Deadly Cargo and Ants, so once he realized little creepy crawlers freaked people out, he kept at it. He also was the writer for SST Death Flight and Jaws 3D. And oh yeah — the sequel to this movie, Terror Out of the Sky.

Norman Gary is the real hero here. He was an entomologist and acted as the production consultant and bee wrangler/handler for this film. All of the swarming shots were handled by him and he also plays a victim. Hundreds of thousands of bees were used for this movie, but there were few injuries.

Sheriff Donald McKew (Ben Johnson) finds his dog dead just as an abandoned freighter pulls into New Orleans, kind of like Zombi, except with bees instead of zombies. Assistant Medical Director Jeff DuRand (Michael Parks) and entomologist Jeannie Devereaux (Gretchen Corbett) learn that the bees in the dog’s stomach are violent ones that could only come from South Africa. This is all happening during Mardi Gras and yes, the parade should be canceled, but the tourists! It’s all psychological. You yell spider and everybody says, “Huh? What?” You yell killer bee, we’ve got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July. Or Mardi Gras.

But the scene where Devereaux has to drive that Volkswagen into the Super Dome hoping that it will get cold enough to kill the bees? Still horrifying. Kids covered in bees? The UK poster? It’s all bee trauma.