THE WASP WOMAN (1995)
Tagline: There is no greater wrath than a woman’s sting.
(Horror, Thriller, Sci-Fi) [R]
In this one, a woman who owns a major cosmetic line and who models for it, is getting older. Her own company wants to replace her with younger models. In her desperation, she tries a new concoction formulated by a chemist that involves wasp venom. She takes the product after it’s tested on a cat and she undergoes a massive transformation and her employees are dropping like wasps…or flies …
This is a pretty faithful remake of the 1959 movie of the same name. The big differences are that this movie is R-rated and is quite a bit more aggressive overall than the original. The acting is decent but there isn’t anything that is going to win any awards here. I don’t want to say it’s cheesy, but it’s just okay for this type of movie.
The main actress in this movie is Jennifer Rubin who plays Janice, and is still acting but is most famous for the role of Taryn from A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS. Janice’s boyfriend in the movie is Alec played by Doug Wert. He does okay, but for a lead male, it’s just a bit rough. Janice’s business partner is played by Gerrit Graham who is most famous for C.H.U.D. II: BUD THE CHUD. Melissa Brasselle plays Janice’s assistant Mary. Melissa has been in a ton of movies which include CAMEL SPIDERS and VAMPIRES IN VEGAS. Outside of that, I am not too familiar with anyone else, but as mentioned earlier the performances all around are just okay.
I think the movie suffers from really bad CGI where it didn’t need to. The actual wasp woman design is what I hoped we would have gotten in the original rather than just a “wasp head”. The CGI is used in the transformation sequences and I think practical effects would have been a lot smarter (but probably far more costly) move. This movie does have all the elements of a cult hit but really isn’t. In fact, the DVD or BLU-RAY is very expensive if you find one, so I had to watch this on a streaming service. On second thought, that might mean it does have a bit of a following.
This was originally presented on Showtime as a part of the ROGER CORMAN PRESENTS TV series. Directed by Jim Wynorski who is famous for directing CHOPPING MALL (and now probably a bunch of low-quality garbage), this one doesn’t match what Corman would have done, but as stated earlier the new one is pretty faithful to the original idea. It’s also not nearly as well directed as CHOPPING MALL was.
Missing some quality and many cinematic elements like a good score and soundtrack this movie could have been a lot more than it was. If you ever watched the show MONSTERS, this is like a longer more R-Rated version of that.
For me, this lands at a 4 out of 7 even with its issues. I do like that someone finally made a version of THE WASP WOMAN that had a full body suit and this is decent popcorn popping watching on a Friday night if you can find it.
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