Monster from Green Hell

Ah, the 1950's. If you wanted to make a monster movie all you had to do was insert the word "radiation" into the script and that explained where the monster came from, no further explanation was necessary. Hey, I like this film and I make no apologies for liking it. The stop motion animation for the monsters is pretty good, especially that scene where a giant wasp battles a python. Sadly there is an awful lot of jungle and not enough monster.

Jim Davis is a scientist firing rocket after rocket full of test animals into space to see what happens when they are exposed to radiation (our tax dollars at work!), this will show what future astronauts have to expect. I guess Jim never saw the movie FIRST MAN INTO SPACE or he would already know. Anyway a rocket full of wasps gets lost up there and eventually crashes in a remote African jungle. Let's not even ask why they launched a bunch of insects into space when they want to see what effect radiation has on mammals; just keep repeating "It's only a movie, only a movie, only a movie . . .". Concluding "There'a a lot of difference between 40 seconds of exposure and 40 hours." Jim packs up and heads for Africa.

Meanwhile the wasps have mutated into giants (what? you're surprised?) and are terrorising an area aptly named "green hell". The local doctor (Vladimir Sokoloff) believes the stories of monsters are nothing but superstition but his native pal Arobi (Joel Fluellen) reminds him "Does an elephant run from superstition? Will a bird not light in a tree because of superstition?" Score one for you, Arobi!

Jim and company have to walk 400 miles through the jungle to reach green hell and have to deal with no rain, poison waterholes and hostile natives before they arrive. When they finally do get there it's just them against the monsters and they'd better do something before the big wasps multiply!

This is really a fun movie and I wish the budget had allowed for more of the monsters. The colour tinting at the end was an especially nice surprise.

Now for all you detractors out there, we don't watch a movie called MONSTER FROM GREEN HELL expecting art; we watch it to have fun. That's what "B" movies are for and this one is lots of fun!

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).

My biggest question about this movie is simply: How did the folks at MST-3000 ever miss this one? It simply cries out for the insights of Crow and Tom Servo.

Jim Davis ( "Dallas", "Guns Don't Argue" ) stars as the head of a group of scientists who attempt to launch some creatures into space. The rocket misfires and lands somewhere in darkest Africa where a bunch of wasps escape and grow into Sikorskys, thanks - natch - to atomic radiation. Davis then leads his own team of WASPS on an Orkin expedition to take care of the problem. Along the way, they are joined by Eduardo Ciannelli, looking a bit like Sabu's grandfather.

Nothing much goes right until the final scene, supposedly filmed in "Lava Vision", during which a giant volcanic eruption takes care of everything. This consists of the surviving crew standing around bathed in a red glow as the volcano - obviously taken from stock footage, as is much of the movie - does it's thing. All harmless fun really, it's only a shame that the MSTYs never got a hold of this one.

Growing up in Los Angeles in the late '50s & early '60s, we had "The Million Dollar Movie" on KHJ-channel 9. The MMM ran every night as well as twice on Saturdays and Sundays, giving the viewer nine opportunities over the course of the week to see whatever film was being shown.

When the MMM showed "The Monster From Green Hell," my cronies and I were seven or eight years old. We saw "The Monster From Green Hell" all nine times!!! Up to that point in our lives, it was perhaps the greatest thing ever put on celluloid.

Heck, giant wasps had over-run Africa and only Jim Davis, who starred as the hero ambulance driver in "Rescue 8" at the time could save mankind. Although I've read that the special effects were really cheap, I thought they might as well have come directly from George Lucas' Industrial Light & Magic. Those huge, giant wasps sure looked real to us! I recall Viewing #8, Sunday afternoon, for you. A buddy and I were at my house, getting ready to watch it in our Living Room when my dad came in, plopped down into his favorite comfy chair and told us he was going to watch something else, something other than ... "The Monster From Green Hell." How could this be? Sacriledge was being committed right before our young eyes! Fortunately, I knew my dad's Sunday afternoon habits, and Habit #1 was sawing logs within five minutes of landing in his afore-mentioned comfy chair. As luck would have it, sure enough, he was off in Dreamland within only a couple minutes.

Discovering this, my buddy and I scooted up as close to the TV as humanly possible and turned the sound down so we could barely hear it.

It was in this manner that we caught virtually all of "The Monster From Green Hell" for the eighth straight showing on "Million Dollar Movie." Well, almost all of it.

Within a minute or two of its conclusion, the mighty beast stirred. Uh oh, my dad had awakened. With a surge of sudden awesome, lightning-quick fury, he arose, hovering over us like Shaq over Billy Barty, and erupted, "THAT'S IT, DAMMIT, NO MORE GODDAMNED 'GREEN HELL!" With that we scooted out from under his grasp, out of the Living Room, out of the house and down the street, congratulating ourselves as if we'd just won the World Series. For we had done it! We pulled off the impossible, a mighty feat indeed! Risking life itself, we were able to see what we truly believed was one of the greatest motion pictures of all time, "The Monster From Green Hell," eight straight times.

That night, at my buddy's house, we capped our perfect week by seeing it for the ninth and final time.

I have never seen it listed on TV again - and yes, I would kill to see it after all these years.

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.