Monster from Green Hell (1957)

The Worst Film Ever

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Admirable film.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Monster from Green Hell starts as a rocket is sent into space, scientists Dr. Quent Brady (Jim Davis) & Dan Morgan (Robert Griffin) are being paid good money to conduct research into the exposure of space to living animals, a rocket ship containing some Wasp's has gone missing & stayed in space for six months before crashing back to Earth somewhere in Africa. Quent is worried & newspaper headlines claiming of unrest in central Africa because of sightings of huge monsters does nothing to improve his mood, Quent suspects that the Wasp's aboard the rocket have mutated to an enormous size & are buzzing around Africa scaring the locals. Something must be done. Quent & Dan decide to go to Africa & discover the truth, unfortunately they need to hike through 400 miles of jungle to get to the location of the sightings but once they do their worst fears become a terrifying reality...Edited & directed by Kenneth G. Crane this cheap black and white late 50's sci-fi monster flick has a bad reputation & after watching it I can understand why, apart from the ridiculous monster Wasp's this thing drags badly which is odd considering it only lasts for 70 minutes. The main problem is that it starts off like a rocket with the mutant Wasp's making an early appearance but then the script slows right down & is padded to the extreme, once Quent lands in Africa the hike across 400 miles of jungle lasts for about forty minutes where next to nothing happens. The expedition run short of water, then it rains. A lot. They are attacked by native tribes & generally just walk around a lot as Quent narrates the story so copious amounts of stock footage can be used. Then during the final ten minutes the Wasp's show up again & are destroyed in a Volcanic eruption, why don't they just fly away? I mean don't Wasp's have wings? Can they not fly? Maybe I'm just thinking about this too much, yeah that's probably it. The character's are poor, there's no chemistry between any of them & not even the obligatory romance between the hero & leading lady. The scientist guy keeps referring to radiation but correct me if I am wrong I don't think there is any radiation in space? The film as a whole feels very dated, the scientific concepts used to explain plot points wouldn't convince a seven year old these days & it really does drag at times with a rather rushed climax.Lots & lots of stock footage is used in Monster from Green Hell, some of it quite nice & nicely edited into the final film but it does stand out all the same. Apparently some footage from Stanley and Livingstone (1939) starring Spencer Tracy was used. The special effects are predictably laughable, the toy Wasp's slowing move along with little wings which barely flap & plastic heads that just look so inanimate & stiff. The attacks aren't that good but there is a cool scene in which a mutant Wasp has a fight with a huge animated Python in easily the films best & most (only?) memorable sequence.Probably shot on no money in California with Bronson Canyon doubling up for the Green Hell of Africa, the whole film plods along with no great suspense or resolution. The acting is wooden as expected, I can't say that I personally recognized anyone in the cast.Monster from Green Hell is a pretty bad sci-fi horror giant insect film that as usual for this period blames radiation, the large amounts of stock footage & the tedious expedition through Africa slow things down to a crawl from which the film never really recovers. The giant Wasp's are also silly looking but kind of cool in a quaint way. I can't really recommend it but that giant Wasp versus Python fight was cool & I had a bit of fun with it, if not much.

Monster from Green hell.I pictured a movie about demons escaping hell or some kind of prison, terrorizing people and whatnot.Ehh... guess I was being a bit too enthusiastic.The green hell refers to an area in Africa. An atomic rocket crashes there and causes the wasps to mutate and grow to a huge size. Better call the exterminators! And they come, accompanied by the local tribe.It's a rather strange movie that didn't turn out as great as I had hoped. The acting is mediocre, the effects are... fine (for the time) and the story is rather broken.One more thing, people can't seem to scream in this movie. I say go rent, buy (for a cheap price) or download this just to hear the 'screams'.5 out of 10 stars.

I was surprised at the amount of giant wasp animated action in the film at the start. There is even a giant full sized head prop too. But there seems to be quite a bit of Jim Davis voice over and as the movie goes on there starts to be more walking to get to the giant wasps than there is actual giant wasps. One major character dies off screen in a way that seems like they never got to shoot it. (Another character shows up and explains what happened) Then the ending is all stock footage and dissolves to footage we've already seen. And Jim Davis, as he did later in THE DAY TIME ENDED, explaining it all to us. Thank god otherwise you'd have only a vague idea of what you just saw, or didn't really get to see.Too bad they ran out of what little money they had. A lively start progressively gets duller. Still that big wasp head was cool, another problem is the generally crappy quality of many copies of the film available which make the footage either dark or blown out. If you're going to watch it make sure you get a decent copy first.The sending test animals into space aspect of the premise is a bit novel as is the idea of having the space ship crash way out in the middle of Africa and having to go find it. Certainly since the film was made, like with the remains of Space Lab, that type of thing has happened.

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.