Monster from Green Hell

******SPOILERS****** Coming back from outer space a rocket launched from the southern part of the United States crashes into the African continent with a Queen Wasp. The wasp was on the rocket to see how it would react to the weightlessness and cosmic rays from space. The Queen Wasp grew thousands of times it's size forming a hornet's nest at the base of a volcano in an area of the jungle known by the local natives as "Green Hell".

The movie "Monster from Green Hell" follows the usual pattern of monster movies made in the 1950's with one major exception. The giant wasps are done in not by mankind technology but by the forces of nature via an volcanic eruption that buries them in a river of lava.

Meager special effects but better then average acting for a low-budget monster film made "Monster from Green Hell" watchable for the 70 odd minutes that it's on the screen. All the efforts to find and destroy that wasps in the movie turned out to be for nothing since all that had to be done was to let nature run it's course.

Cheap and unconvincing effects made the giant wasps look and act ridicules in their attacks on the natives and safari members with the real action highlight in the movie was an attack by thousands of native warriors on the safari. Those scenes was far more effective and scary then any of the giant wasp attacks.

Good acting by Jim Davis and Robert E. Griffin as the two American doctors on the safari with Joel Feuellen and Eduardo Ciannelli as their native and Arab guides with Vladimir Skoloff, who ended up killed by the wasps off screen. There's also in the movie Barbara Turner as Skoloff's young daughter who looked and sounded like a young Igrid Bergman. The special effects of the giant wasps was only so/so but there was a very good scene with a giant wasp battling it out with a large python that was a lot like the scene in "King Kong" between the giant ape fighting with a pre-historic snake-like creature.

The last five minutes or so of the movie was shot with an beige or orange tint to give the volcanic eruption at the end of the film a fiery look to it.

Jim Davis plays a scientist who sends some animals, a few wasps in particular, into space to see how they fare under radiation. Alas, some wasps don't return and turn to gigantic proportions somewhere in Western Africa. Don't expect too much from this cheapie, but the film might be better than you expect prior to viewing. Despite the wasps and their infrequent screen time, the movie has the look and feel of a very cheaply-made film yet is able to tell a decent...okay, almost decent story. Made entirely in California with oodles of stock footage set in Africa, I found the film quasi-authentic. The acting was also somewhat acceptable. Davis was decent as were his co-stars. The film dives at the end with some quick resolution to an enormous problem. As far as bad movies go..you could find many much less entertaining and boring. Vladimir Sokoloff has a nice small role as a missionary in Africa.

I recently acquired a copy of Monster From Green Hell and was after it for ages. This was released on video in Britain as part of the Killer B's series, all now out of print.

A nuclear test rocket containing wasps crashlands in an uncharted area of Africa known as 'Green Hell'. An expedition is sent over there to search for it. But before they arrive, locals are being killed by these wasps which, as a result of radiation, have grown into giants. While searching for the rocket and its contents, the party encounters dangers such as unfriendly natives, several days' of rain, a volcano, jungle wildlife and of course the giant wasps. They eventually find what they are looking for and the volcano erupting kills all the wasps at the end. They could have done with Tarzan's help. He would not have any trouble killing the wasps.

I found this movie rather enjoyable and the colour sequence at the end featuring the volcanic eruption was impressive.

The special effects were good considering the low budget. Some of the wasps and a snake were done in stop-motion. The cast includes Dallas star Jim Davies. This movie features stock animal footage and clips from the movie Stanley and Livingstone.

Great stuff.

Rating: 4 stars out of 5.

Considering the producer was responsible for Robot Monster, this film is not the incredible mess R.M. was.

It's also no THEM either.

It's an average 50's giant bug film. Slightly more inventive in using wasps that mainly crawl around on the ground rather than fly. We usually only see one giant wasp who resembles more dung beetle than a wasp.

I think there is a shot or two in which obviously animated wasps fly and buzz too.

Well radiation in Africa mutated wasps and they are killing natives mostly.

Harmless fun if you've got time. If you remember it as a kid your tolerance for it is significantly higher than viewers not familiar with the film.

Kenneth Crane followed his classic 'Half Human' with this little masterpiece whose 1956 copyright date indicates they weren't in a great hurry to release it.

In order to reassure the viewer that this is a twentieth-century sci-fi movie we get the usual footage under the opening credits of a wartime V-2 taking off masquerading as Dr. Quant Bradley's "experimental rocket". This time the film being cannibalised is 'Stanley and Livingstone', so they all don 19th Century pith helmets and WALK 400 miles across Africa to the Hollywood Hills to confront the giant mutant wasps following the "typical wasp markings" they leave behind them (although they look more like giant termites than wasps and in distress sound more like elephants than insects) that cosmic rays have created and are now wreaking havoc with the usual stock footage of antelopes and giraffes.

At the time of his death in 1981 Jim Davis was a household name on TV as Jock Ewing in 'Dallas' and he is here supported by veterans Eduardo Ciannelli and Vladimir Sokoloff; the latter's daughter played by the soulful-eyed Barbara Turner (herself later the mother of Jennifer Jason Leigh).