Buzzkill on Arrival
Some movies are hidden gems. Others are so bad they’re good. The Hive (2014) is neither. It’s a cinematic virus that infects your patience and slowly mutates it into despair. Written and directed by David Yarovesky, the film is a genre mashup of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Evil Dead, and an Axe Body Spray commercial. The result is something that buzzes, glows, and occasionally screams — but never, ever makes sense.
The title The Hive suggests a terrifying collective intelligence or maybe a gripping exploration of identity. What it actually delivers is ninety minutes of neon puke, melodramatic voiceovers, and a protagonist who looks like he’s been fighting both aliens and acne.
Meet Adam Goldstein: The World’s Saddest Camp Counselor
The movie opens with Adam Goldstein (Gabriel Basso) waking up in a barricaded cabin covered in black goo, writing cryptic notes to himself like a goth with memory loss. He’s infected with something nasty, possibly a metaphor, but mostly just an excuse for cheap body horror and unconvincing twitching.
Through flashbacks, doodles, and increasingly incoherent narration, Adam tries to piece together what happened. Spoiler: what happened is a bunch of nonsense involving Russian scientists, a crashed plane, and summer camp drama. You know, the usual.
Adam, as it turns out, is a camp counselor with a history of sleeping with coworkers — a fact the movie reminds us of constantly, as if it’s important. He’s in love with Katie (Kathryn Prescott), who’s as bland as her name, and cheating with Jess (Gabrielle Walsh), who’s even less memorable. His best friend Clark (Jacob Zachar) exists mostly to shout “DUDE!” and look betrayed when the inevitable happens.
The camp, called “Yellow Jacket,” is aptly named because it’s annoying, loud, and will sting you if you get too close.
The Plot: Science, But Make It Stupid
Flashbacks drag us to the 1980s, where Russian scientist Dr. Yuri Yegorov (Elya Baskin, who looks like he wandered in from a better movie) is experimenting with hive mind technology. His test subjects mutate, rebel, and massacre the lab. You’d think this might serve as the core of the story, but nope — it’s just a five-minute infodump before we’re thrown back to Adam’s tragic love polygon.
Then there’s Dr. Baker (Sean Gunn), who apparently got the grant money to continue Yegorov’s work — because in movie science, nothing says “sound investment” like resurrecting Soviet experiments that literally exploded. Baker operates on a little girl named Kayla, who wakes up, recites math, and dies — the movie’s first and last attempt at profundity.
From there, things get weirder. The virus spreads, infecting people and turning them into hive drones. Adam and his fellow counselors stumble upon the crash site of Yegorov’s plane and get a face full of black goop. Within minutes, everyone’s either possessed, making out, or both.
The Tone: A Hangover Wearing a Sci-Fi Costume
The Hive desperately wants to be deep. It throws around words like “shared consciousness,” “collective memory,” and “metaphysical infection,” but it’s basically a zombie flick in skinny jeans. Every time Adam starts narrating about “the darkness within” or “the link between souls,” you can almost hear the script begging to be taken seriously.
Unfortunately, the movie undercuts itself with whiplash editing, gratuitous gore, and a soundtrack that sounds like Skrillex having an existential crisis. There’s a scene where the infected vomit glowing black sludge, and it’s treated with the same gravitas as a breakup scene. Nothing says “prestige sci-fi horror” like a man crying in front of a neon puke bucket.
The film’s idea of visual flair is bathing every shot in ultraviolet lighting until it looks like a rave inside a tanning bed.
The Romance: Fifty Shades of Gross
Adam’s romance with Katie is supposed to be the emotional backbone of the film, but it’s more like the emotional scoliosis. Their chemistry is nonexistent — they spend most of their scenes together alternately glaring or bleeding on each other.
Jess, the other woman, provides tension in the same way a mosquito bite provides character development. Her only purpose is to die dramatically and expose the affair, which causes Clark to lose his mind and start swinging axes at everyone. It’s a horror film that mistakes infidelity for plot.
By the time Adam tearfully locks infected Katie in a room “for her own good,” you’ll be praying the virus finishes the job.
The Science: Sponsored by Wikipedia and Caffeine
The movie’s central idea — that a virus can connect human minds into a shared consciousness — could’ve been fascinating if the script had even a passing relationship with logic. Instead, it plays out like the writer skimmed an article about brain chemistry and decided to wing it.
We’re told the infection creates a hive mind that allows people to access each other’s memories. Fine. But then Adam somehow learns to “disconnect” himself from the hive, yet still use its powers — because why not? He even downloads memories from random soldiers, like it’s Netflix for brains.
At one point, he literally defibrillates his girlfriend back to life using someone else’s memory. That’s not science fiction; that’s narrative malpractice.
The Performances: Overacted, Underwritten, and Terminally Confused
Gabriel Basso gives it his all, but you can only do so much when the script forces you to alternate between weepy monologues and zombie spasms. He spends much of the movie shirtless, sweaty, and whispering about love, which might appeal to someone but definitely not to anyone who values coherent dialogue.
Kathryn Prescott, as Katie, delivers her lines with the enthusiasm of someone reading IKEA assembly instructions. Gabrielle Walsh’s Jess gets to snarl and drool black goo, which at least gives her something to do besides pine for Adam.
Sean Gunn’s Dr. Baker seems to be acting in a completely different film — one that might actually be good. He chews through his scenes like he’s auditioning for Resident Evil: The College Years.
The Editing: Like Watching a Seizure Through a Kaleidoscope
The film’s editing deserves its own autopsy. Flashbacks within flashbacks, montages inside montages — by the end, time itself feels infected. Every time Adam remembers something, we get a rapid-fire sequence of strobe lights, ink blots, and close-ups of screaming faces.
It’s meant to feel chaotic and immersive. It mostly feels like watching a trailer for a movie you wish you were watching instead.
The Message: Love Conquers All (Except Viruses, Logic, and Good Writing)
By the final act, The Hive transforms from sci-fi horror into a sappy love story with delusions of grandeur. Adam realizes that his love for Katie can “override the hive mind” — because apparently love is stronger than brain parasites and better than antibiotics.
After murdering her, he brings her back with a defibrillator, then plants fake memories in her head to make her believe they escaped. That’s right: his big romantic gesture is gaslighting her from beyond the apocalypse. Move over, The Notebook.
The ending tries for bittersweet tragedy but lands squarely in “wait, what?” territory. The world’s been overrun, humanity’s doomed, and our hero’s moral takeaway is “at least she’s happy.” Bravo, Adam — you’ve truly earned your spot in the “toxic boyfriends of horror cinema” hall of fame.
Final Thoughts: The Hive Mind Has Left the Building
The Hive wants to be bold, emotional, and profound. It ends up looking like a Mountain Dew commercial directed by an art student having a nervous breakdown. It’s stylish, sure — if your definition of “style” is black goo, bad haircuts, and dialogue that sounds like a TED Talk written by a concussion.
There’s potential buried somewhere under all the slime and self-seriousness, but like its infected characters, the film can’t stop devouring itself.
By the time the credits roll, you’ll feel infected too — not with a virus, but with regret.
Final Verdict:
⭐️½ out of 5.
A film that proves hive minds are real — because everyone involved clearly shared one bad idea.
