The Bumblebees (2014) Online

Betty Sue is on the verge of joining all female gang 'The Bumblebees' but a close-call the night before is giving her doubts. She relates the story of her and Kitty's night out, unsure of what happened to Kitty in the end.

Aesthetically this is quite an arresting film in terms of the design of the Bumblebees themselves; it is not the most original perhaps, but I liked the 1950's style fashion, hair, and make-up and that, at least occasionally, the characters spoke in Noo Yark style accents. This gave it a trashy tone which mostly suits the tone of the film. There is an element of exploitation cinema in this short, mixed with revenge-thriller, and it does have the feel of those 1970's films so beloved by Tarantino. This is a problem for the short in two ways; the first is that it doesn't really have the resources/ability to pull off this style, and for example modern touches like the heavy bass of the soundtrack seem out of place. The bigger issue is that it seems to be focused so much on being like other things, so much that it isn't its own film or voice.

In the end it manages to do reasonably well on most things, while also falling short of target. This is the same in the style – good ideas in location, great job with make-up, but yet the soundtrack and other elements of the delivery don't fit. Similarly the plot has trashy b-movie elements, but yet it doesn't totally embrace that sense of fantasy, and so the involvement of a threatened sexual assault seems a bit too "real" in the film to be taken as part of this colourful exploitation film. The casting is mostly good – and the background members of the gang has good style and presence. Paterno is good in the lead role; very commanding on screen and captures her part well – vulnerable and inexperienced, but yet clearly at the start of something. By contrast, while ShaVaughn gives what is asked, I did feel that the gang-mother character was too obvious and too big of a thing to fit into such a small film.

The Bumblebees has some good ideas and elements, with good roots in exploitation b-movie cinema, however it doesn't totally sell itself into this as much as it needed to.