Monster from Green Hell (1957)

Giant wasp with a lot of hairs up its nostrils! — This giant wasp has got a lot of hairs up its nostrils!

This science fiction creature feature was directed by Kenneth G. (THE SPLIT) Crane, written by Louis (I MARRIED A MONSTER FROM OUTER SPACE) Vittes and Endre Bohem, and stars Jim (THE DAY TIME ENDED) Davis, Robert (I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF) Griffin, Joel Fluellen, Barbara Turner and Eduardo Ciannelli.

The story centres on scientists, armed with grenades, trekking across Africa to find the wasps from a failed rocket experiment… that have turned into mutated giants!

The flick features lots of footslogging scenes. There’s so much walking! These sequences feature the main characters wearing Victorian-era clothing… so that the filmmakers can match the shots with bigger-scale stock footage scenes taken from 1939’s STANLEY AND LIVINGSTONE!

Jim (DALLAS) Davis wears old fashioned explorer gear so that stock footage from STANLEY AND LIVINGSTONE can be used in this movie!

And after all that bloody trudging across Africa… the scientists are actually unable to kill the wasps with their grenades during the finale! Yes, the protagonists fail in their mission! But then… an erupting volcano fortunately intervenes and this wipes the critters out. How very convenient!

The plot for MONSTER FROM GREEN HELL is, as you may have guessed from my comments above, not too hot… but I kinda like the beasties!

These creatures are a bit toy-like, but a certain amount of effort was put into them: stop-motion puppets (built by Wah Chang and animated by Gene Warren), plus a full-scale prop head and pincer, are used to bring the bugs to life on-screen. Actually, the full-scale bug head, with swivelling compound eyes, is quite impressive. So it’s a pity the movie didn’t utilise it more.