Reception
Many filmgoers and critics consider this film one of the worst "disaster films" ever made, along with Allen's subsequent films Beyond the Poseidon Adventure and When Time Ran Out (1980). It was one of two disaster films (the other being 1979's Beyond the Poseidon Adventure), directed solely by the "master of disaster" Allen, who had experience directing several films and many episodes of his TV shows.
The film was a notorious box office bomb upon its release in 1978, barely making it two weeks in theaters. Michael Caine, despite other failed films, claims it is the worst film he ever made (along with his decade-earlier film The Magus and his later film Ashanti): "It wasn't just me, Hank Fonda was in it too, but I got the blame for it" he claimed in an interview with Michael Parkinson.
The film is also famous for Olivia de Havilland's "Scream Moan", in which when she sees the dead children outside the window she moans a scream.
Read more about this topic: The Swarm (film)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Aesthetic emotion puts man in a state favorable to the reception of erotic emotion.... Art is the accomplice of love. Take love away and there is no longer art.”
—Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)