Movie Review: Tsunambee

With a title like Tsunambee, I was hoping for something along the lines of Big Ass Spider. Unfortunately, I could not be so lucky. I can forgive and enjoy low budget, cheesy, corny, silly movies if they manage to entertain, if they embrace what they are and just run with it. It is this reason that makes the Sharknado films as modestly entertaining as they are (even though I will never understand the popularity that series has achieved). Those films, by comparison, are absolute masterpieces next to Tsunambee, which has very little besides a clever title to go on. By the way, there isn’t anything resembling a tsunami in this movie to warrant that clever title. Surprised?



Tsunambee was written and directed by Milko Davis and is his directorial follow up to his 2007 effort Raiders of the Damned. The movie purports to be a creature feature, but actually turns out to be some sort of faith-based excursion into using belief and faith to get through the impending apocalypse. Something like that. There are Bible quotes and Christian themed imagery early on and multiple conversations referencing faith rather than do anything else.

The movie starts off in a rather scattershot fashion. We watch a woman piece together a cross as CG bees buzz around a desolate landscape before moving to a South American jungle where an expedition runs across a series of large bee hives. They are attacked and we never see them again. We finally pick up some main characters as they escape from Los Angeles where we see news reports of fires and looting, but are never given any cause to why this is happening.

The characters, presumed gang members based on some horrible stereotyping and their wearing striking yellow and black colors (subtle reference to the bees?). We catch them outside LA being confronted by a couple of stereotypical and, presumably, racist good ol’ boys. They are holding guns on each other when the local Sheriff shows up and tries to take control of the situation. This is also the moment where the gang members say the radio isn’t working to get information and are told they should give up on the radio and turn to faith.

So, what follows, in between horrible looking bee attacks, are conversations and arguments about what is going on, how they need to have faith, and how they hope to survive. Frankly, I have to be honest, I lost interest. The middle of the film just bogs down in pseudo-character development, bad acting, no progression, no action, and downright tedium. Oh, I almost forgot to mention that a couple times in the boredom, bee victims inexplicably come back as zombies. Sounds like an element to exploit, right? I guess the filmmakers didn't think so.

There really was an opportunity here to make a fun, cheesy, creature feature. The problem is that it takes itself too seriously and in pushing its faith based agenda. If it amped up the badly CGI’d bee attacks, maybe even create, I don’t know, a bee tsunami, and embraced the cornier elements, this could have been fun. Then the end comes and the faith stuff gets slathered on, and I just didn’t care. There was no reason for anything, there is no resolution to anything, it all just happens and then it stops. Much like this review.

Not Recommended.