Sure, when I sat down in 2021 to watch the 1966 sci-fi horror movie titled "Sting of Death", I wasn't exactly having much of any expectations for the movie, mostly given its age, but also from its synopsis. But still, I hadn't ever heard about the movie, nor seen it, so of course I found the time to sit down and watch "Sting of Death".

And mind you, it was bad alright. But it is one of those movies that are so bad and cheesy that it actually slips over into becoming enjoyable and watchable. And yeah, "Sting of Death" was one such movie.

The storyline in "Sting of Death" was pretty straight forward. And for a sci-fi horror from the mid-1960, I would say that the plot and script in "Sting of Death" was pretty generic and one that comes a dime a dozen, actually. Sure, it was still enjoyable on some level, albeit it was predictable.

The acting performances in the movie were adequate, taking into consideration the age and the plot of the movie. However, you shouldn't be expecting anything grand here. And it is nowhere near other movies of its kind from the same era in terms of acting performances.

Visually then "Sting of Death" was just laughable, especially the design of the creature itself and its jellyfish companions. I will not spoil anything here, because it was so bad that it has to be seen with own eyes to believed.

The music in the movie was just strange, especially the music they opted for during the dramatic chase scenes and whenever something 'scary' was about to happen.

There was something absurdly enjoyable about the 1966 movie from writer William Kerwin and director William Grefé. "Sting of Death" is worth sitting down to watch for a good laugh actually. My rating of the movie lands on a less than mediocre four out of ten stars. While watchable, "Sting of Death" is hardly a movie that you will watch more than once.

William Grefe, the terminally terrible bargain basement Sunshine State auteur responsible for such choice all-thumbs turkeys as the atrocious "Death Curse of Tartu," the tawdry "The Naked Zoo," the wonderfully wretched William Shatner psycho scream "Impulse," and the amiably dippy "Jaws" clone "Mako: Jaws of Death," strikes out something smelly once again with this alarmingly awful, yet undeniably awesome and hugely enjoyable $1.98 K-Mart dime-store discount version of "The Creature from the Black Lagoon." When a hottie college gal invites a bunch of her friends over to her scientist dad's remote Florida Everglades abode for a swinging swampland shindig, you know that the bash is bound to be crashed by a deadly monster of some kind or another. Well, said monster does indeed materialize in the gloriously ludicrous form of an uproariously crummy-looking, seaweed-covered, obscenely bulbous-headed -- the bloodthirsty beast looks like it has a large, filthy, semi-transparent plastic garbage bag over its noggin! -- cheesoid humanoid murderous mutant jellyfish man who proceeds to off the pinheads with his lethal poison touch. If that isn't absurd enough, we've also got an uglier-than-a-donkey's-butt creepy hunchback assistant who tries desperately to win over our fetching leading lady's affection to no avail, Neil Sedaka making an off-screen strictly-on-the-radio appearance heartily belting out the exceptionally asinine dance ditty "The Jellyfish" during a simply smashing let it all hang out hedonistic pool party sequence (Neil eventually did pop up on screen to warble the similarly silly "Do the Waterbug" in the sensationally schlocky psycho howler "The Playgirl Killer"),lots of attractive sweet young honeys in skimpy apparel shaking their shapely fannies in the most rhythmically challenged manner imaginable (ravishing redhead looker Deana Lund of "Land of the Giants" fame among 'em),and the marvelously nihilistic fact that almost everyone in the horrendously dismal cast gets deservedly bagged by the homicidal whatchamawhosit.

Add Grefe's lifeless direction, pacing so lethargic it makes two snails on downers going uphill sound downright stirring in comparison, painfully stiff acting, gaudy, but static photography, a surprisingly rousing last reel boat chase, and one of those horribly droning stock film library scores. Put all these endearingly crappy elements together and the net result is a real four-star stink-bomb that hard-core bad movie buffs will relish every last profoundly pitiful minute of. Those fabulous freaks at Something Weird Video offer this must-see doozy on a bang-up DVD double bill with "Death Curse of Tartu;" tasty extras include the original theatrical trailers and a pair of very lively, informative and often hilarious William Grefe commentaries.

This film actually deserves to be much better known---especially among bad movie junkies!! While ROBOT MONSTER is very famous for having the monster be a guy in a gorilla suit with a diving helmet, this film is at least as bad in featuring a guy in a scuba outfit covered in slime and a garbage bag for a head!!! Apparently, he was part-man and part-Portuguese Man O'War and so this was the clever way they made him look like one of these deadly creatures! What was even sillier was that you could actually see the flippers on his feet were flippers--and you could see the seem! For sheer cheesiness, this film might just be the most hilariously inept monster of all time. In addition, these cousins of the jellyfish that attacked and killed a boatload of people were actually plastic baggies with tentacles glued onto them! As for the plot, three researchers live on an island that borders the Everglades. When the daughter of the head researcher comes with her obnoxious friends, one of the "friends" goes out of her way to laugh at the one researcher because he has a facial deformity (looking like he'd had a stroke--nothing THAT unusual or ugly)! Then, when a large group of college students arrive a short time later, they knock this same guy to the ground and laugh hysterically at the fact he's deformed!!! These stupid and over the top scenes made the crowd scenes from THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME seem subtle in comparison! Not surprisingly, around this same time, the house guests start being murdered by an unknown creature. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure who's behind all this, but apparently this is a pretty dumb group so only towards the end do they unravel the shocking mystery--yup, the deformed guy has somehow made himself part man and part stinging machine! Throughout all this hoopla, people behave pretty irrationally and put themselves in harms way again and again--just like the same stupid teens acted in the Jason and Freddy Kruger movies in later decades--but with even WORSE acting and production values.

The bottom line is that the film is hilarious and very watchable--especially with a group of friends who like poking fun at absurdly bad films. This movie, while not as funny as PLAN 9, is much funnier that THEY SAVED HITLER'S BRAIN, TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE or any one of a number of other cult-classic bad films.