MONSTER FROM GREEN HELL (1958)
Director: Kenneth Crane
Image Entertainment

Yep, it's a giant bee, folks.

Some people claim "Plan 9" is the worst. Nah, far from it. MONSTER FROM GREEN HELL comes close and would most likely be on my list for the 100 worst films ever made. Jim Davis (No, not the creator of "Garfield!") searches for a giant bee (or is it a wasp or a hornet? They're all the same to me--they sting and I don't like them very much) in Africa (okay, so it's Bronson Canyon--the B-Movie capital of Hollywood) and finds a giant, mutated, unconvincing creature (are those kitchen strainers for the eyes? Yes, they are) and some poor stop-motion animation. Why are these insects huge? Why, radiation, of course! Some moronic government (oh, wait... it's us, the United States!) had a big-time failure of a rocket crash in the heart of Green Hell (yes, Africa is ALL jungle, folks!) and everything's starting to go from bad to REALLY bad.

This atrocity is from producer Al Zimbalist, the man who helped to bring us another, even more classic no-budget Bronson Canyon creation, ROBOT MONSTER. The new DVD release of this abomination has been provided to us by the fine folks at Image Entertainment, one of my two favorite companies devoted to releasing good trash like this. The DVD print is very decent, with a lot of little scratches and stuff at the beginning, which clears up (somewhat) by the middle of the film.

The mono sound sounds decent enough for this kinda movie (which isn't saying a whole lot, but it beats my VHS copy any ol' day). The DVD menu consists of three pages of chapter stops (the wasp in the middle takes you to the theatrical trailer) and, like most of the newer Image DVDs, clicking on the atomic thingy (you'll have to see it to know what I'm taking about) takes you to a separate page with five other "Also Available from..." titles and their trailers.

Highly recommended for bad-movie fans, small wasps, and high-school biology teachers. (Adam Becvar: bastardo@thegrid.net )

BACK TO REVIEWS

HOME