Starring Jim Davis, Robert E. Griffin, Joel Fluellen, Barbara Turner, Eduardo Ciannelli
Directed by Kenneth G. Crane
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)
A pair of scientists discover the rocket they sent into space carrying ordinary wasps has crashed in the African jungle and cosmic radiation has mutated the wasps into deadly giants.
Although the hunt for the wasp monsters in the African jungle was actually per IMDB filmed at California locations, including Universal Studios and Bronson Canyon, the filmmakers for this low-budget production do a creditable job of passing them off as African locations, integrating the needed stock footage fairly well. The special effects, by Louis DeWitt, and Jack Rabin, along with the uncredited, per IMDB, Irving Block, Wah Chang, Jack Cosgrove, and Gene Warren, bring hulking wasp puppets to life, and animate them somewhat with limited stop-motion. The puppets are certainly fearsome, but these wasps inexplicably never leave the ground, and a climactic volcanic eruption is poorly rendered. Albert Glasser's score does add the appropriate notes of menace for the giant wasps, and the film is more than watchable although at times not very well paced. As for the cast, Jim Davis, later to become better known for his role on TV's Dallas, is grim and expressive enough in the lead, but fine character actors Vladimir Sokoloff and Eduardo Ciannelli are wasted in limited roles. The production should be given credit for largely avoiding racial stereotypes, although the jungle natives are still scripted to give in to their fears and superstitions.
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