The oft-used stock footage of V2 missiles at launch and in flight (a staple of the lower end of the American science fiction films of the 50s) get things off to a tired start in Monster from Green Hell, a late-in-the-day addition to the giant insect cycle that had started just four years before with Them! (1954). And it doesn’t really get much better from there. Remove the amount of stock footage used in the film – not just the missiles but footage of all manner of scientific paraphernalia at work, terrified crowds fleeing poorly matted giant wasps and all manner of wildlife footage) and you’d be left with barely any film at all. Director Kenneth G. Crane must have knocked his original footage out over the course of a long weekend without even breaking into a sweat.
The American space programme here is reduced to two scientists (Jim Davis (still a few years from playing Jock Ewing in Dallas (1978-1991)) and Robert E. Griffin) in a pokey facility in the desert whose latest test mission returns to Earth somewhere in Africa, near a region known by the locals as Green Hell. The bulk of the film is taken up with a tedious trek through the jungle to find the crashed rocket, eventually finding that the cosmic radiation they scientists were using in their tests has mutated the cargo of wasps the missile was carrying into murderous giants. Even after their arduous (more for the viewer than for them) journey, they make no impact whatsoever on the plot – the wasps are not defeated by anything they do but by a handy erupting volcano.
Monster from Green Hell screams cheap in every shot – the giant wasps are terrible, just plastic heads and a couple of pincers that are frequently badly matted into that interminable stock footage. The newly shot jungle scenes are clearly shot in a park somewhere in California (Bronson Caves inevitably put in an appearance at the climax) and the interiors seem to have been shot on a soundstage no bigger than a standard-sized broom cupboard. The only reason that the rocket crashes in Africa is because producer Al Zimbalist (the man who previously gave the world Robot Monster (1953), Cat-Women of the Moon (1953) and King Dinosaur (1955)) seems to have had unlimited access to footage filmed there – taken it seems from Stanley and Livingstone (1939) which goes some way to explaining why 50s American space scientists dress like 19th century colonial explorers, so their costumes match those seen in the stock footage!. At one point our heroes are attacked by a local tribe simply because footage existed of a battle between rival tribes. It serves no purpose in the plot other than to slow down the interminable expedition even further.
Towards the end of the film we get a clue as to where most of the film’s budget went when we get “treated” to a brief, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it stop-motion fight between a mutant wasp and a giant python. Was it worth sitting through the tedious wandering around in the trees that we had to sit through first? Of course not. But it perhaps says everything you need to know about Monster from Green Hell that it’s the film’s highlight.
At 71 minutes, Monster from Hell should have flown by. It doesn’t. It drags. 71 minutes in the company of unbelievable characters, poorly acted and unconvincingly fitted in around pre-existing footage doesn’t make for the most entertaining evening’s viewing you’ll ever have. If you’ve exhausted the other 50s giant insect films and still haven’t quite had your fill it might, at a pinch, satisfy your need for more. It will certainly ensure that you never want to see one ever again.
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