| The Wasp Woman | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Roger Corman Jack Hill |
| Produced by | Roger Corman |
| Screenplay by | Leo Gordon |
| Story by | Kinta Zertuche |
| Starring | Susan Cabot Anthony Eisley Michael Mark Barboura Morris |
| Music by | Fred Katz |
| Cinematography | Harry Neumann |
| Editing by | Carlo Lodato |
| Distributed by | The Filmgroup Inc. |
| Release date(s) | October 30, 1959 (United States) |
| Running time | 73 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $50,000 (estimated) |
The Wasp Woman (aka The Bee Girl and Insect Woman) is a science fiction film produced and directed by Roger Corman (who also plays a cameo as a doctor in the film) which was completed in 1959. To pad out the running time when the film was released to television two years later, a new prologue was added by director Jack Hill.
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In Jack Hill's prologue, we see a slightly mad Dr. Zinthrop fired from his job at a honey farm for experimenting with wasps.
The founder and owner of a large cosmetics company, Janice Starlin (Susan Cabot), is disturbed when her firm's sales begin to drop after it becomes apparent to her customer base that she is aging. Scientist Eric Zinthrop (Michael Mark) has been able to extract enzymes from the royal jelly of the queen wasp that can reverse the aging process. Starlin agrees to fund further research, at great cost, provided she can serve as his human subject. Displeased with the slowness of the results she breaks into the scientist's laboratory after hours and injects herself with extra doses of the formula. Zinthrop becomes aware that some of the test creatures are becoming violent and goes to warn Janice but before he can reach anyone he gets into a car accident. He is thus temporarily missing and Janice goes through great trouble to find him, eventually managing and then transferring his care to herself. Janice continues her clandestine use of the serum and sheds twenty years' in a single weekend, but soon discovers that she is periodically transformed into a murderous queen wasp. Eventually, Lane throws a jar of acid at her face, killing her.
Director Corman was clearly influenced by Kurt Neumann's 1958 film The Fly. The Wasp Woman has the head and hands of a wasp but the body of a woman—exactly the opposite of the creature shown in the film's poster (that doesn't appear in the film).
Trying to keep ahead of schedule, Corman tried to film the climactic action scene in one take.
Whenever The Wasp Woman bit one of her victims, Cabot had to have a mouthful of chocolate syrup to pass for black-and-white blood.
When Bill Lane throws a bottle of acid at The Wasp Woman in the final scene, the plan was that Cabot would drop behind a desk and someone would sprinkle some liquid smoke on her mask and then she would come back up. They accidentally put too much liquid smoke on her and by the time she crashed through the window the smoke had gone through the two air holes and into her lungs. Then someone worked out that she could not breathe, so they managed to pull a bit of the mask off, along with some skin.
Though most audiences didn't see the film until the official release on February 12, 1960 (when male lead Anthony Eisley was starring on the TV series Hawaiian Eye), it was re-released as part of the 100th Anniversary of Monster Movies in March 2010.[1]
Much of the Fred Katz soundtrack was recycled for Corman's later film The Little Shop of Horrors (1960 film).
On April 6, 2008, Cinematic Titanic did a live riffing of the film to a sold-out audience, and was released on DVD on August 7, 2008.[2] Previously, cartoonist/internet humorist Josh Way had also riffed the film as part of his "Fun With Flicks" series.[3]
In 2007, The Wasp Woman was shown on the horror hosted television series Cinema Insomnia.[4] Apprehensive Films later released the Cinema Insomnia episode onto DVD.[5]
In 1995, a remake of The Wasp Woman was produced for the Roger Corman Presents series. It was directed by Jim Wynorski, and stars Jennifer Rubin as Janice.[6]