The Wasp Woman

Janice Starlin has spent sixteen years as the public face and head of her own cosmetics company, and her advancing age has become a problem for its image. When she learns of a scientist's experimental serum derived from wasp royal jelly, she decides to test it on herself. The treatments restore her youthful appearance, but the supply runs short, and the formula carries a severe side effect: Janice begins transforming into a giant wasp-like creature that kills.

Roger Corman directed this 1959 horror and science fiction film, the third of the nineteen features he directed in chronological order, following A Bucket of Blood the same year and preceding The Little Shop of Horrors in 1960. Leo Gordon wrote the screenplay, and Corman produced. Susan Cabot plays Janice, with Anthony Eisley as Bill Lane, Michael Mark as Dr. Eric Zinthrop, Barboura Morris, William Roerick and Frank Gerstle in supporting roles. The film runs sixty-one minutes and was made in the United States by The Filmgroup and Santa Cruz Productions Inc.

Audience reception has been modest: on IMDb it holds a 4.8 rating from roughly 6,100 votes, and on TMDB a 4.5 from about 123 votes. These figures suggest a genre quickie remembered more for its place in Corman's busy late-1950s output than for broad acclaim.