The Wasp Woman (1959)

Directed by Roger Corman [Other horror films: The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955), Day the World Ended (1955), It Conquered the World (1956), Not of This Earth (1957), Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957), The Undead (1957), War of the Satellites (1958), A Bucket of Blood (1959), House of Usher (1960), The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), The Premature Burial (1962), Tales of Terror (1962), Tower of London (1962), The Raven (1963), The Terror (1963), X (1963), The Haunted Palace (1963), The Masque of the Red Death (1964), The Tomb of Ligeia (1964), Roger Corman’s Frankenstein Unbound (1990)]

I didn’t go into this one with high expectations, and I got pretty much what I thought I would out of it. I didn’t really think The Wasp Woman was horrible, and the story itself wasn’t that bad, but I do feel that this is pretty forgettable, and following The Fly by a year, somewhat laughable.

It’s more than that, though, because even though the design of the wasp woman is pretty terrible, at least the scenes in which she appeared had some action. Otherwise, the movie was pretty damn dull, and while I can appreciate some set-up, this movie really dragged things out with little reason (especially given the film is just a little over an hour).

The only individual here who I really thought stood out at all was Michael Mark, who played the foreign scientist who led to the creation of the horrifying wasp/human hybrid. Mark certainly wasn’t amazing, but he was amusing from time to time, and given much of the rest of the cast was stale, I guess I’d give him kudos for keeping things fresh.

The finale here seems a bit rushed, and it took the characters in the film more than a little time to realize that people have been dying, so as for suspense, well, I’d look elsewhere. There’s not even much an emotional impact, as the titular wasp woman, played by Susan Cabot, wasn’t particularly sympathetic.

Of course, the design of the Wasp Woman itself was pretty silly, but I suspect they cobbled something together the best they could with what they had, so while it didn’t look stellar, I don’t really hold that against the film. The bigger issue here by far is the lackluster story, and the fact that even at just over an hour, The Wasp Woman dragged like nobody’s business.

All said and done, The Wasp Woman is a weak outing from Roger Corman, who did plenty of actually good movies, such as Pit and the Pendulum, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Haunted Palace, and A Bucket of Blood. Hell, even Attack of the Crab Monsters, a film rather flawed, was more fun than this. The Wasp Woman is just dry and lacking much of interest, and it’s not a movie I suspect I’d watch again any time soon.

4.5/10