THE STORY: I never saw the original Wasp Woman movie. I wonder if its anything like this one.

Our movie begins with a beautiful woman jogging in really tight clothes. She passes a bug-exterminator guy who warns her that the path she's running on has some pretty nasty insects. She ignores the warning and seconds later is killed by a really cheap looking special effect. Now, the special effect is supposed to be a swarm of bees. It looks more like a swarm of bees from a Tom and Jerry cartoon. (No thats wrong, those bees looked like bees and not black dots) I'm suprised the bees didn't get into formation and make a hammer or an arrow or something as crummy as this effect looked....what's worse, this girls death at the hands...er, stingers of the bees has nothing to do with anything else!

We meet Janice Starlin, a former model and now owner of a cosmetics company. Janice models for her own products but she's no spring chicken. She's getting older and it shows. Her photographer Alec is also her boyfriend and even he admits that he has to use filters to hide some of her wrinkles and crows feet. Janice's right hand man, Arthur, and an investor, Talbot urge Janet to step down as the model and hire some younger model. Janice doesn't like that idea much. She gets her secretary, Mary, to look up a scientist, Dr. Zinthrop, who is working on de-aging serums.

Janice visits Zinthrop and he shows her his serum, which is made from wasp venom. To prove it works, Zinthrop injects his cat, Samson with it. Janice promises to return later to see what effect it had on the cat. Meanwhile her company has hired a woman named Caitlin to be the new model for its products. Janice is full of cold rage when she see the beautiful and young Caitlin. She visits Zinthrop again and finds his old cat is now a kitten! Excited she asks Zinthrop to inject her with the serum. At first Zinthrop refuses. The serum hasn't been tested on humans yet. But Janice reads him his record....Zinthrop was discredited for using an untested serum on cancer patients. One of them died. (but seven others lived! Wow!) Zinthrop agrees to inject her.

A few days later Janice is looking like she's 25 years old! Vibrant and young she's on top of the world. Everyone is amazed! Janice confides in Mary about the serum, and plans on using it to revitalize her company and set the fashion and beauty world on fire. Unfortunately Zinthrop's cat has become a giant cat sized wasp and killed him in a basement. No one knows about it so Janice thinks Zinthrop just disappeared. For some reason Zinthrop's lab is unlocked so Janice routinely goes there and injects herself with the serum. ( She could have done the smart thing and taken it home to use it, or here's a flash...have it analyzed and copied at a lab somewhere! Dummy!)

The side effects of the drug start to take their toll on Janice. She seduces Alec's assistant Nick and kills him by turning into a giant ass wasp with tits! (nice ones too!)No kidding! If wasps really had tits I'd have gone into bee keeping! Anyway, she takes the body to a cave that she and Alec took photos at and cocoons it up. Meanwhile, Caitlin puts the moves on Alec, but Alec truly loves Janice so he turns her down. Caitlin leaves Alec's house but forgets an earring. Remember that...it'll come up again. Janice then discovers that Arthur has been following her and trying to find the serum so he can sell it to Talbot. Janice corners him at night in his office and becomes the Wasp Woman again. Using her mandibles, she bites off Arthur's wee-wee. The drug is making her behavior erratic and Alec is concerned. He asks Mary if she's noticed. Janice sees him talking to her and has hallucinations...specifically of Alec ripping open Mary's shirt and gettin' bizzay. Her next victim however is Talbot. She calls him over to her house and tries to seduce him. At first Talbot gets into it, then he figures if he's going to be investing in her company its not a good idea. Janice then reveals that she knows about the plan he had with Arthur to steal the serum. Angered, Talbot says the deals off with his investment and tries to leave. He would have made it, too if Janice didn't become a 600 pound wasp and rip him to pieces. Talbot ends up in the cave all cocooned up with the other victims. (Are they dead? I dunno....I'd guess so)

Alec follows Janice and spies on her when she goes to Zinthrop's lab and injects herself. He later confronts her telling her this youth serum is like an addiction to her, but he loves her and wants to help her. They embrace and Janice admits thatt something has happened to her and she needs help. That night as the two lay in Alec's bed, Alec gets up to answer the phone in another room. Janice gets up to blow her nose and finds Caitlin's earring. Paranoid, she figures that the little hussy has been screwing her man! She locks the door and changes into the Wasp Woman. Alec gets into the room just in time to see the window open and find the earring on the floor. Putting two and two together he rushes to Caitlin's house. Caitlin's roommate tells him that Caitlin just left because Janice called and asked her to be in a late night shoot at her offices. Alec rushes there, but he's too late. He finds a lot of blood in the studio...indeed...because Janice as the Wasp Woman has already killed Caitlin and taken the body. Alec goes home and tries listening to Zinthrop's tape recorded notes for clues. One of them is that wasps take their prey to dark holes and burrows and some such. Whether or not that's true, I don't know. I hate wasps. He figures then that Janice may be taking the bodies to the caves that he photographed her at. Meanwhile Janice calls Mary, waking her. She lies saying she's in trouble at the caves and needs help. Mary goes there and finds Janice alone and very much all right. Janice accuses her of sleeping with Alec (as per her hallucination) She then turns into the Wasp Woman and tries to kill her. Just then Alec arrives and distracts her allowing Mary to run away. On her way out of the cave, Mary passes some open boxes full of dynamite! (Go figure! Its not like that stuff should be under lock and key or anything) She lights a stick, runs back to Alec before Janice gets him and throws it at her. Then they both run away. At slow speeds. Somehow they get out just before Janice picks up the dynamite and places it in the crate with the rest. Its as if she realizes what she's become and plans to blow herself to kingdom come...which is what she does!

Alec and Mary go back into the cave and see the body of the giant wasp. (I thought standing next to a crate of dynamite would vaporize a body...or maybe trigger a cave-in...) I guess this is just so Mary can cry and say the final line..."She was so beautiful!"

While not a boring movie it didn't scare me at all. Its definitely watchable as long as you don't take it too seriously. I wonder though, are people that vain? Janice wasn't ugly or anything. She just didn't want to look her age which I guess was about 45. Look, ladies, you're going to get older that's life....I think you're all beautiful no matter what age you are. Live with it.

Janice was actress Jennifer Rubins. She looks familiar, but I don't know from where. Arthur was actor Garret Graham. Graham was in The Annihilators and played an alien Q on Star Trek: Voyager. Caitlin was my old nemesis Maria Ford! I thought that was her but I couldn't be sure until I read the credits. For one thing her acting wasn't that bad, which is a suprise. Also she looked really good! I said in my review of Future Fear that Ford makes my skin crawl when I see her nude. Not in this movie bubba. She looked downright hot! I think she must have gotten a tan because she wasn't her usual pasty color.

Best Lines: "You have got the greatest rack I have ever seen!"-Nick tries to pick up a chick at a bar.

1.) If there's some really nasty insects on the path that the bug catching dude warns the jogger about why isn't the path closed off until the problem is taken care of? The bug dude obviously knew of the danger and when the jogger scoffs at his warning he says "Your funeral!" You know a few signs that say something simple like "DANGER" might have helped.

2.) Right. Janice gets Dr. Zinthrop to inject her with his untested on humans youth serum. Now I wouldn't mind being about ten years younger....who wouldn't? (unless you're like 16 now or something) But who in their right mind would let a discredited doctor inject them with an experimental serum? Hell no! Funk Dat! Zinthrop even tries to warn Janice but she insists! Hasn't she ever watched a horror movie! Experimental serums from crackpot scientists NEVER work correctly! They always turn people into monsters! Its the [unwrite]ing law!

3.) Dr. Zinthrop obviously didn't see any horror movies either. He injected his cat, Samson with the formula and unbeknownst to him, Samson has become a cat sized wasp. When he hears the cat's mewling from a basement he goes down there. Now, the mewling doesn't sound natural...in fact it sounded weird, like an alien cat. What is this guy? Ripley's* great, great grandfather? I wouldn't go down there for my cat! Even if she had a million bucks tied to her ass!

4.) In order to kill the wasp woman Mary uses dynamite. Dynamite that just conveniently happens to be lying around in opened crates! DYNAMITE! Right.

NUDITY AND SEX: Yes, but its an interesting use of body doubles. When Janice has sex with Alex you never see her face and the body that's doing all the humping in the same shot. Whenever her head is in the shot attached to a naked body hair obscures her features. Also, when Janice hallucinates Alec putting the moves on Mary, the boobs on Mary are about the size of Watermelons! A fully clothed Mary doesn't sport gazongas that big. Theres also an hallucination of Alec having sex with Caitlin.

HUH?: How does the door shut in the basement when Zinthrop goes down there looking for his cat. For no reason it just slams shut on him. Is it a haunted basement? Talk about [unwrite]ty luck. Zinthrop goes into a haunted basement only to be killed by a giant wasp! That's like going into Dracula's castle and getting killed by tripping and falling down the stairs.

How do Janice's clothes change when she becomes a giant wasp?

When Alec finds that Janice has murdered Caitlin why doesn't he call the police? At this point he doesn't know that she becomes a giant wasp, but he knows she's off her rocker! I can understand he cares about her, but if my wife started acting crazy and I had reason to believe that she's murdered a few people I'd call the cops! Hey I care about my wife but I couldn't let her go out and kill innocent people!

THE TALLY: While better than a lot of crap, this movie is no classic. I guess if you have the original on tape you can watch them both and compare notes, but don't look for excitement  in this one. You can pretty much tell who's gonna be wasp food in it. I even figured that Mary was going to live by mid movie. (Anyone who wasn't a sleazeball made it...with the exception of Caitlin. She was a floozy, but not a very bad person. Her only crime was being hot) I bought this movie in the two dollar bin....I suggest that's where you find it if you wanna see it 'cuz even two dollars was kinda steep for it!

*Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver was the heroine in the Alien movies. In the first one she goes back into a ship thats about to explode and has a big [unwrite]ing mean man-eating alien in it just to rescue a cat.