The Swarm is a 1978 American natural horror film directed and produced by Irwin Allen and based on Arthur Herzog's 1974 novel of the same name.

It stars an ensemble cast, including Michael Caine, Katharine Ross, Richard Widmark, Richard Chamberlain, Olivia de Havilland, Ben Johnson, Lee Grant, José Ferrer, Patty Duke, Slim Pickens, Bradford Dillman, Henry Fonda and Fred MacMurray in his final film role.

The film received overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics and was a box-office bomb, although praise was given to the costume design.

At the gates of the base, Slater confronts angry county engineer Jud Hawkins, who demands to see the dead body of his son, an airman in the bunker who was killed by the bees.

However, the bees attack the train, causing the locomotive to derail over a cliff and kill almost everyone aboard, including a love triangle made up of schoolteacher Maureen Scheuster, retiree Felix Austin and town mayor and drug store owner Clarence Tuttle.

The savage swarm heads for Houston, Texas, and Crane decides to drop eco-friendly poison pellets on them, hoping the bees' senses will be harmed and they'll stay away from the city.

Dr. Krim self-injects an experimental bee venom antidote, planning to track the results, but the trial proves fatal and he dies.

Crane analyzes tapes from the bee invasion and comes to the conclusion that a test of an alarm system at the ICBM bunker attracted the swarm into the base.

Helicopters playing the alarm sound from the ICBM bunker over loudspeakers lure the bees out to sea, where they douse the water with oil and set the swarm ablaze.

The film grossed $5,168,142 in its opening weekend[8] in more than 1,200 theaters,[9] and earned Warner Bros. rentals in the United States and Canada of $7.7 million.

Comparing the film unfavorably to recent blockbusters such as Star Wars and Grease, which also evoked old B-movies, he wrote, "Allen merely reproduces a tacky genre while spending a great deal of money doing it.

"[9] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the film was "fun in its primitive way", adding, "One wishes it were silent, as were the DeMille epics of the '20s it so closely resembles.

"[14] Tom Zito of The Washington Post wrote, "While subtlety has never been a strong theme in Allen's films, The Swarm does manage to turn the industrious little honeybee into a menace so seemingly convincing that America may go bee-crazy this summer.

Somehow disaster-movie king Allen convinced top Hollywood stars (including five Oscar winners) to appear in this nonsense.

[21] Despite its large negative reception and box office failure, Paul Zastupnevich was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design.

An expanded, remastered score was released in 2002 in a limited edition by Prometheus Records and contained over 40 minutes of previously unreleased material.

In 2020, La-La Land Records issued a two-CD set with the complete film score and the 1978 soundtrack album.

This extended version is also included on all DVD releases worldwide, alongside a 22-minute documentary, Inside The Swarm, and the original theatrical trailer.