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Film Review: HoneyBee (2016)

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“Honey Bee” starts off with the feel of Twin Peaks, there is a quaintness to the picture that the director is trying to paint, including the high schooler with a Harley. That is until the ridiculous music kicks off and we are forced to watch 5 hipsters in their early 20’s slow walk down a high school hall way like some bad music video, culminating in a quick cut to a bad teacher joke. High school life followed by music video styled moments is largely what the audience has to endure in the slow paced build up and character development in the film. It is not until about half way through that the mystery behind the new family in town begins to unravel. The Domineering mother of five boys, whom she uses to commit crimes on her behalf. There are moments where they hint and foreshadow at mental illness throughout the film, leading to the not so shocking conclusion that the mother of five teenage boys is a little off her rocker. In fact by the time something happens, you have already forgotten it’s a genre film. Sadly all the tropes of the beautiful gypsy family full of romantic teens inevitably is…Vampires. Sans sparkles.

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“Honeybee” is something of an oddity when it comes to no budget/low budget flicks, it has mostly organic acting. The audience could get a sense that principle actors actually got a long, and were interested in each other. Not academy award winning acting by any means, but Garrett Richmond did great. There was a lot of believable light hearted comedy throughout the film. Honestly most of my praise for “Honeybee” is that it did really well, as a non-genre film. Nicki Harris the writer and director did an excellent job until it came to bringing home the genre aspects of the film. If her budget was the issue and she had to choose having good actors over other aesthetics, then she made a good call. The actors and story are what drive this movie.

This film does have most of the same quirks that low budget films have, minor sound quality issues for instance, and a strange array of inexpensive music for a sound track. The music was very disjointed, mostly it had a 1980’s synth feel to it, which normally conjures up gritty streets and frantic action scenes with Don Johnson, not teens in love in a peaceful lake side town. Music that’s off is a lesser cinema sin though, kind of like actors with half sleeve tattoos pretending to be high schoolers. I am beginning to wonder if they had a makeup artist on set at all, because that should have been concealed.

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Now that I have given the good, here’s the bad. I am a genre geek, a horror nerd, this film has nearly no genre elements to it. With its undertones of mental health issues, and the way the kids are set up to behave around a rather abusive mother, it could have more effectively become a psycho slasher thriller. The vampire effects and gore were anemic to non-existent. Out of a 90 minute or so film, the audience gets a whopping 3 minutes of blood, including a dabble of blood around the mothers mouth to show she fed on some one. The first scene when the mother feeds on a person I seriously thought she was a psycho cannibal, the gore was minimal and it looked more like she was eating someone’s face instead of drinking their blood.  Just a little arterial spray would have been nice.

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This flick has an audience though, it would be good for people too squeamish for the good stuff or too young for the harder stuff. This film is not one that would grace my personal collection, nor would make the cut to movie night in my household. So for you more entrenched genre fans, and you know who you are, stay clear of this one.


  1. What movie did YOU watch? They weren’t vampires, they were part honeybee, and the mom was the Queen and the sons were drones which is why they died when she died and they had black blood and it was explained and they all have different dads and she would have killed Danny but felt guilty bc he was nice so instead went to get her fix at a bar. Literally shown and explained…… Like, you are such an idiot. I am in High School and I am smarter than you. You are lazy or stupid? Also man Id love to rent your movies too. What are they?

    • I was surprised when I read this review after just finishing the movie, because I was sure that they were bees, as well. I mean, it’s kind of right out in the open with the whole title…”honeybee.”

      Now, having said that, you really didn’t need to be quite that snarky about it. You could’ve made your point without the rudeness. While we are speaking of making a point, I have one to make.

      You said that the mom couldn’t kill the dad because he was so nice to her, and so then to satiate herself she just went to the bar….but that is the part where I think you MAY have gotten it wrong. I, personally, think that she went to the bar intentionally, but for TWO reasons. The first was because she needed to pollinate. The second reason, by remembering the story the dad had just told her on their date, earlier that night, really touched her. So much, in fact, that she ended up meeting the man who’d had an affair with the fathers wife… so, I’m her pathetic attempts at being ‘good’ or even just ‘doing the right thing’ she pollinated the man. Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to get quite enough, which ended with her knocked the father unconscious. I believe that she genuinely cared for him and because of that, she threw him off the boat and let him drown, without pollinating him.

      At least that’s how I see it. Looks like there’ll ‘bee’ a sequel….

  2. I like the movie but couldn’t understand if the new family were zombies or a queen monster bee and her drones pretending to be her sons. I didn’t understand the film. I did though love the fact that they didn’t put in a bunch of funky porn. I do love the fact of seeing new faces who are trying to come into film, than the veteran actors who are a 190 years old trying to look 18. And there is never a jack big enough to take on that job.

    • Agreed this movie rocked

    • My belief is that the mom was the Queen bee, and the boys were her lil’ bees. I thought it was obviously low budget, but the acting was decent enough to hold my attention. However, whoever did the ‘music’ ought never to do that type of work again. Or, at least they need to figure out how it’s done. It was like really bad porn music, which is never good for family night at the movies.

  3. Well if you though there was anything vampiric about the movie, you missed the whole idea. They were “Honeybees” in human form. Once you get past that the movie makes more sense. I do agree that more of a back story to this strange and weird family would’ve helped in understanding what was going on. What were they running from and where? Why do the boys eat human food, while the Queen only feeds on humans and why she needs young girls in her diet? those were questions if answered early on would’ve added more flavor to the flick.


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