From Hell It Came

Oh, sorry....that was the tree in Wizard of Oz. However, another malevolent animated tree is on the loose, but this time it's the dreaded Tabonga, who wanders around an island scaring guys in Hawaiian tourist costumes.

Actually, the plot shows some originality (even if the production quality is a laugh riot). A tribal chief on a tropical island somewhere commits the Unpardonable Sin by being friends with some American scientists who are studying....um, something, not sure what. So, some members of his tribe conspire together and kill him. Something about nuclear power resurrects him as a tree. Yup, a tree. Or at least, the stump of a tree, with a scowling face painted on. It appears to be inked by the same artist, with the same black magic marker, that did the alien's face in "It Conquered the World."

Anyway, the tree goes on a vengeful rampage and starts to get even with his murderers, one by one. Since guns and other typical weapons are (like always) useless against this thing, it's up to the scientists to find a way to stop this wooden creature before he wipes everybody out. Tension mounts to excruciating levels as Tabonga hobbles around, chasing and terrorizing horror-stricken islanders at about the velocity you would expect a tree to move at.

One of the all-time so-bad-it's-good classics from the golden age of drive-ins, right up there with Plan 9 and Robot Monster. It really is fun to watch, if nothing else than certainly for the laughs it provides. Best watched with friends; you can have a MST3K style "bark jokes at the screen" party.

Hilariously stupid schlock favourite has a deliciously ludicrous premise and overall is good fun, although for a while it's overly talky. It isn't until the final third that we see some priceless killer tree action. The filmmaking Milner brothers, director Dan and co-story author / producer Jack (who'd also done "The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues" previously) bumble their way through this kitschy combination of South Seas atmosphere, lame acting, very silly lines, and not very special effects. All of these elements make "From Hell It Came" a cinematic stinker that one can treasure.

A group of scientists on a remote island are trying to provide medical care to the locals, but the witch doctor and new tribal chief will have none of it. They execute Kimo (Gregg Palmer), son of the previous chief, for having the audacity to accept the help of these meddling Americans. But Kimo vows to return, and so he does, as something called the Tabanga, a lumbering humanoid walking tree (played by wrestler turned stuntman & actor Chester Hayes), and he proceeds to get his revenge. The scientists, meanwhile, don't ever look too concerned.

Starring as supposedly heroic doctor Bill Arnold is Tod Andrews ("Beneath the Planet of the Apes"), looking stone faced throughout. Playing the requisite female lead is pretty Tina Carver, whose character Terry Mason is portrayed as brainy but not too sensible, and eventually it's obviously her destiny to be carted away by the monster. Robert Swan, as witch doctor Tano, and Baynes Barron, as new tribal chief Maranka, are reasonably fun villains. Linda Watkins, however, is fatally annoying as motor mouthed trading post operator Mae Kilgore, affecting an absurd accent for the part.

One supposes that Jack Milner and screenwriter Richard Bernstein deserve credit for coming up with a different sort of monster for the atomic age. In any event, "From Hell It Came" is a real gas certain to have its audience chuckling often. It comes complete with a moral that "American magic is better", which just makes it all the more amusing.

Five out of 10.

Fans looking for absurd, cheesy entertainment from the 1950s will be well served by this cheap and schlocky B-movie, forever remembered in the hearts of bad film buffs as the one about the "killer tree". Forget THE GIANT CLAW, this is the real stuff. Anybody who's seen one of those old-fashioned low-budget 'jungle' movies made on a set in Hollywood will find FROM HELL IT CAME packed full of the stock clichés present from the period, from 'witch doctors' throwing magic exploding powder into flames, to strangely American-looking natives padding out the cast of village extras, to a script which vainly tries to make scientifically-plausible sense of the chaos whilst keeping a healthy level of mumbo-jumbo native superstition bubbling merrily away.

At the end of the day, the film concerns the activities of a walking tree to kill people. The special effects used to animate said tree are appalling; basically it's just some unlucky guy in a silly rubber suit, completed with a goofy face and painted-on eyes. The flexibility of the suit is zero, with just a couple of rubber arms sticking out from each side, so at any point the monster is required to perform an action, it just ends up looking ridiculous. The cast isn't much better; aside from dependable (but ageing) male lead Tod Andrews, there don't appear to be many real actors in the cast list. Most annoying of all is Linda Watkins' character. The American Watkins speaks with a truly grating Cockney accent all of the time, then later on turns out to have supposedly come from Australia! It beggars belief, it really does. Just another whacked-out element to an already incredible movie. An immortal delight for bad-film buffs everywhere.

This movie is ultra low budget, has ultra low budget acting, and ultra low budget special effects, even for 1957. And the storyline is perhaps the most ridiculous in the history of the cinema. Why then would I grace this movie with an "average" five star rating? Quite simply, it is hilarious! Come on, you have to admire any filmmakers nerve when he makes a movie about a walking killer tree stump! The only thing that comes close in my mind is the killer bulldozer aka "Killdozer" from the mid seventies. Watching the murderous tree stump lumbering across a field in search of prey is about the funniest thing in my movie memory. I first saw this film sometime in the seventies on one of those late night horror film festivals, and I'll never forget it! How can something so bad feel so good?

I remember watching this oldie-but-goodie when I was growing up--I think it was on Creature Features.

It was intriguing in its own appealing-to-nine-year-olds sort of way. I remember the scientists trying to save its life by putting it on their operating table, and then realizing they need to find some green blood. And I recall at least one scene where a woman was drowning in quicksand. (Quicksand--remember that? It was the bane of horror for male kids back then. Whenever my friends and I would be playing "War" or "Jungle" in the fields behind my house, one of us would always end up flailing away in quicksand.)

But the memory that stays with me the strongest is a nightmare I had some time after seeing this flick. That horrible face on the tree stump was silly when you watched the Tabanga walking around, but disembody it in your unconscious mind and it acquires a new, more terrifying dimension. I suppose I'll always remember that one dream.

One thing I never understood about the title, though--the prince who died and was reincarnated as the tree stump was good, so assuming he went to heaven after dying, why does the title say that he came from Hell?