Monster from Green Hell

[PackBacker]

"Monster from Green Hell" 1958


Directed by: Kenneth G. Crane ("The Manster")


Written by: Endre Bohem, Louis Vittes ("I Married a Monster from Outer Space")


Starring: Jim Davis ("Dracula vs. Frankenstein"), Barabara Turner, Robert Griffin ("I Was a Teenage Werewolf"), Joel Fluellen

Tagline: Atomic mutations with an appetite for flesh!






Rating: 1/10


SPOILERS WITHIN

Plot: Wasps mutate to enormous sizes after being exposed to cosmic radiation during a rocket launch. The wasps then terrorize the natives and wildlife upon crash-landing in Africa.


Review: This film should have been called "Attack of Stock Footage and the Voiceover Villain". The 71 minute runtime must be extended by close to ten minutes of recycled film and banal voiceovers by our intrepid scientist. If that wasn't bad enough, the plot, acting, and bugs are also shoddy.

So our wasps are launched into outer space. Cue rocket stock footage. They lose track of the rocket and then have to ask (literally they talk into a microphone) the computer where it lands (the computer apparently talks back). The answer- Africa! Africa is continuosly referred to as it is a small town or city, not a continent. Six months later reports surface of monsters terrorizing people. Our scientists then think it might be there wasps and that maybe they should look for them. The previous six months they must have been filling out lost rocket paperwork.

Meantime a missionary doctor sets out in search of whatever is terrorizing the local townfolk and animals. Cue stock footage of lions, zebras, wildebeasts, elephants, giraffes, and monkeys. We then get to see our monsters as two tribesman are dispatched by paper mache pinchers. The wasps vary in size from about a large SUV to roughly the size of Manhattan. They also have tiny wings and are apparently flightless. Must have been steroids.

Our intrepid scientists meanwhile trek across Africa towards the wasps and the doctor. Cue safari stock footage. They encounter restless natives who attack their group-- cue more stock footage. After that there is drought, endless rains, poisoned waters, and a lightning storm. Basically the filmmakers had to craft an entire film and their wasps just were going to cut it.

The two groups meet up and go after the wasps. The group finds them near a random volcano. After some shenanigans with grenades, the group watches as the volcano erupts (cue stock footage of several different volcanoes) and the wasps make groaning noises as they are wiped out. Those tiny flightless wings apparently were their downfall.

"Monster from Green Hell" is a poor take on the giant monster phase. It becomes very obvious very early on that the monsters are secondary here. Safaris, stock footage, and whiny scientists are the main point of this film. Maybe it's because of how shoddy the monsters look.

The wasps look atrocious. The pinchers are paper-mache-esque while the faces look like plastic car grilles with headlights for eyes. Again the variation in size is hilarious.

The acting is poor. I think the filmmakers knew this as well so instead of long periods of dialogue that require emotion or believability they resorted to narration. If they were smart they woulda just pieced the entire film together from other films including the main actors.

"Monster from Green Hell" is only for those with a large animal obsession. Giant ants, spiders, rabbits, etc. have proven imminently more entertaining than the safari trek to reach the volcano home of the giant wasps.