Starring - Jim Davis (Satan's Triangle, Deliver Us From Evil), Robert Griffin (I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Science Fiction Theatre), and Joel Fluellen (The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Mighty Joe Young)
Release Date - 1957
Genre - Horror/Sci-Fi
Tagline - "Today it's destroying Africa... tomorrow the world!"
Format - Bluray (Personal Collection) (Screener)
Rating (out of 5):
There is several memorable eras in movie history ranging from silent, to the classic monster movies from Universal, the atomic or atom age of cinema, before moving into the exploitation age and the drive-in era. My biggest movie toxic trait is that I always have to associate films with the trend of the era and my favorite era of films is the atomic age from the mid-50s to early 60s. I fucking love the films following space invaders of this time but my real love is the mutated creature films that made the double features at the drive-in the go to spot most evenings during this time. One of these mutated creature films that I had never seen before is 1957's Monster from Green Hell. I had heard of this one before but I never had the opportunity to check it out. That changed when The Film Detective released the film on blu and my friends over at MVD were kind enough to send a copy my way. Like always I want to thank MVD and The Film Detective for hooking me up with a review copy.
The film follows a group of scientists who travel to the deepest reaches of Africa while looking for a spacecraft that is suspected of crashing there. The spacecraft was transporting wasps in hopes of taking them to space to determine their survival rate outside of our atmosphere. However, something happened and it crashed deep in the African jungle. Now, those wasps have been mutated by space radiation and is killing the locals. It's up to the scientists and their guide to stop the wasps before they reproduce and make their way into the civilized world.
Monster from Green Hell is campy, cheesy, and far from perfect but I enjoyed it. I rarely get to watch a creature feature from this time but they rarely disappoint. Sure, they are bad a lot of times but they are still extremely fun. I would love to see this film, or any number of films from this era, at a drive-in as part of a double feature like many movie goers were able to do when this one was released. It's such a campy and enjoyable film that would be even more enjoyable if you were in that drive-in setting. The acting in this one is not the best. In fact, there was several instances where it felt awkward to watch and I kind of felt embarrassed for the cast. Most of the cast is not that confident when delivering their dialogue. They do warm up as the film progresses but it still takes some time with awkward dialogue and scenes before it levels out. The story for this one is pretty much a straight forward "science accidentally mutates nature" with the creature killing mankind being a wasp. It's not the first time we've seen an insect grow to gigantic proportions and attacking humans but the space aspect mixed with the jungle adventure does make for a fun setting for a sci-fi horror film. It's very campy with a lot of cheese but I had fun with it. It was a super late night watch and I find those to be enjoyable especially if the film is in black and white like this one was. Finally, this is not a bloody one but I did like the look of the creature. It didn't look like a wasp to me. Instead, it looked like a paper mache mantis but that only added to the campy charm of this creature feature. Overall, Monster from Green Hell is a classic late 50's monster movie. I can see this one being a mainstay in a horror host's arsenal or part of a riffing show. It's fun but far from perfect. I would highly recommend checking it out if you've had a few beers or looking for a late night flick.
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