Stargate Theatre - Dragon Wasps
Stargate Theatre
Dragon Wasps
My thanks for joining me on this latest trip down the rabbit hole that is “b” movies that feature or star former Stargate actors, in this episode of the podcast will be taking a look at the 2012 movie Dragon Wasps which starred Corin Nemec and Benjamin Easterday.
This movie follows the adventures of two young women (Gina Humphries & Rhonda Guiterrez) who are attempting to track down Gina’s father who has gone missing while doing genetic research in the Belize jungle. Unprepared for the rigors of the jungle Gina (Dominika Juillet) and Rhonda (Nikolette Noel) eventually come across a US military unit commanded by John Hammond (Corin) ably supported by his second Willy Meyers (Benjamin). Gina convinces John to search for her father but soon after entering the jungle proper the unit comes under fire from a local drug lord and his men known as Jaguar (Gildon Roland). As the battle rages the two groups are attacked by very large wasp like creatures and with many dead and wounded the battle lapses and John makes the hard decision to take his seriously wounded man to the villagers controlled by Jaguar for medical attention as he would not survive the journey back to base. Alas despite being cooperative on the surface and helping the soldier Jaguar intends to sacrifice the US soldiers as he believes this keeps his people safe from the wasps but Gina discovers the truth that it is the cocaine leaves that act as a naturally deterrent. The next day Jaguar secures all the US personnel except for Meyers and readies them for the sacrifice, John managers to distract him and Meyers opens fire, alas with high odds against them the only ones to escape are John, Meyers and Gina as Rhonda gets taken by the wasps. They three of them flee from Jaguar who has to deal with a swarm of wasps attacking his people and head towards the wasps nest located thanks to the gps trackers the missing soldiers were wearing. Armed with C4 they enter the nest and find the fate of those taken by the wasps, they are used to incubate young dragon wasps but for some reasons Gina’s father has not been infected, they rescue him but with limited C4 John decides to stay behind with his fallen men and destroy the nest. As Gina and Meyers leaves the nest they see Jaguar and his men enter, soon after the nest is blown with apparently no survivors…
Dragon Wasps is a pretty straight forward story, there was no real complexity in the script which works out pretty well given it provides the actors even the less experiences ones to perform well. It also might indicate the production chose to prioritise the CGI and Location Filming since both of them are way beyond what you would expect from this type of movie. The location shooting in Belize is gorgeous and even when green screen/compositing is used it is done to very good effect. The CGI for the large dragon wasps is also very detailed and impressive, the swarm is let down by lack of detail but overall many aspects of the production are top notch. The movie as it stands comes highly recommended even the digital muzzle flashes (my personal bugbear) are not too annoying and hats off to Corin who co-produced and Benjamin who was also the stunt coordinator.
