FROM HELL IT CAME
U.S.A. | 1957
Directed by Dan Milner
Starring
Tod Andrews
Tina Carver
Linda Watkins
B&W | 71 Minutes | Not Rated
Format: DVD-R (NTSC)
Warner Archive Collection
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Now available at Amazon (Nov. '09)
 
 
Review by
Brian Lindsey
Film:4
DVD:4
I grew up watching cheesy old sci-fi and horror flicks on television yet somehow this one fell through the cracks. Memories can fade and get jumbled together with the passage of 30 or 40 years, but I'd sure as hell remember this baby had I seen it... It's that retarded. The walking tree stump-monster in From Hell It Came, the infamous "Tabonga", easily joins the pathetic beasties of The Creeping Terror, The Giant Claw and Creature from the Haunted Sea in the pantheon of Lamest Movie Monsters of All Time.
    Yeah, you heard right. Walking tree stump-monster.
    The Tabonga is born — literally — from seeds of vengeance, the manifestation of a death-curse. On an unnamed South Seas island, a native called Kimo (Gregg Palmer) is condemned to die for a crime he didn't commit, the murder of his father, the tribal chieftain. The real culprits are the tribe’s witchdoctor and the evil usurper who now rules in the slain leader’s place. Framed for the killing by his scheming wife (Suzanne Ridgeway), Kimo is staked out on the ground spread-eagle; before a ceremonial dagger is pounded into his chest he grimly vows to take revenge from beyond the grave. ("I shall come back from hell and make you pay for your crimes!") After the execution is carried out the villagers do some goofy ritualistic dancing and Kimo’s body, placed in a wicker coffin, is buried vertically in the tribal cemetery.
    The witchdoctor wanted Kimo eliminated because of his interaction with a small team of American doctors conducting research on the island. The natives are suffering from a strange plague — a malady the witchdoctor is powerless to cure — which the Americans are studying. A few years earlier there was an atomic bomb test on a nearby atoll and the Pentagon wants to know if radioactive fallout could be responsible. Kimo had been urging his people to ask the Americans for help, something the witchdoctor wasn't going to stand for. (Especially if they could successfully treat what he could not.) Blaming the Americans for the plague, the witchdoctor and village chief try to turn their people against the outsiders although a few enlightened natives seek their aid in secret.
    There are only five white people on the island: a gabby English widow (proprietor of the trading post) and four Americans: a trio of medical researchers and an army sergeant. With Kimo’s execution they have good reason to be alarmed, since the natives are getting restless. This concern takes a back seat, however, when the scientists learn there's something very odd about Kimo's burial site. A strange-looking tree stump has sprouted overnight from the grave! Protruding from its weird, fleshy bark is the dagger used to slay Kimo, which was interred with him. To study this phenomenon the eggheads unearth the stump and cart it back to the lab. They're amazed to discover that it has a human-like pulse and heartbeat and is growing at a fantastically accelerated rate. Have they discovered a completely unknown species of jungle flora, some kind of plant-animal hybrid? The search for answers is interrupted when, during a storm that night, the lab is trashed and the thing disappears. Obviously, the natives must've broken into the place and stolen it. Yet one of the scientists (Tod Andrews) isn’t so sure.
    Kimo has returned to fulfill his curse, reborn as the legendary Tabonga — a 7-foot tall ambulatory tree stump that stalks the island in search of those who wronged him in life. You'd think everybody else wouldn't have to worry much, but according to legend the Tabonga keeps on a-walkin' and a-killin', indiscriminately, until it is somehow stopped. Now it's only a frickin' tree stump, for Pete's sake, so how hard could that be? Fairly difficult, it turns out. While the creature may not be particularly intelligent or agile (understatement of the year there!), even fire cannot destroy it...
    Painfully cheap, From Hell It Came can't even do justice to the hoary '50s horror/sci-fi clichés it dutifully trots out. (They could only afford 5 seconds of military stock footage.) All of the backstory and a big chunk of the plot is conveyed via clumsy exposition-laden dialog; an obligatory romantic subplot — involving Andrews' character and his proto-feminist colleague, played by Tina Carver (one of the worst movie screamers I've ever heard) — is as pointless as it is boring. Putting aside the racial insensitivities of the day, the natives, especially the men, are insultingly so not Polynesian that I wouldn't be surprised if the film was banned in Samoa. As the flighty, flirty trading post hostess Mae, Linda Watkins is ostensibly onboard for comic relief but she's not funny — at all — and her faux Cockney accent is like sandpaper on the eardrums.
    All of this places any hope for the slightest smidgen of entertainment value on the broad, knotty shoulders of our malevolent Ent, the Tabonga.
    The suit was designed by Paul Blaisdell, monster maker for such cult B-movie faves as It Conquered the World and Invasion of the Saucer Men. The guy could often work small wonders considering the paltry budgets and time constraints he labored under, but, for whatever reason, he comes up woefully short in this case. (Probably the biggest reason: it's a walking tree stump-monster.) Slowly shambling through the brush with a perpetual scowl on his 'face', the Tabonga requires substantial assistance from his victims to catch and kill them, such as conveniently fainting into his barely mobile arms or standing still next to a tree so as to be crushed between it and the monster. (Actually, it sorta looks like Tabonga is trying to hump him!) This pathetic loser of a monster is definitely good for a few knee-slappers, but the movie around him is just a pain to endure. Alas, there's not enough laughably cheesy monster action to go around.
   
This is my second go at a DVD from Warner Home Video's Archive Collection, catalog titles that are 'burned on demand' when ordered via the company's website. (Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze was the first.) The discs are higher quality DVD-Rs of titles Warner is unlikely to ever give a market-wide release. Thus they are available at WBshop.com (eBay and Amazon Third Party sellers as well) and are not to be found at brick & mortar stores. Each DVD comes in standard keepcase packaging (although not shrinkwrapped; there's no security tape to mess with) and is given professional looking cover/disc art. At $19.95 a pop (not counting shipping) I think they're overpriced by at least 6 to 8 bucks.
    From Hell It Came's anamorphic 1.85:1 transfer actually looks pretty darn good, with only some minor speckling and a grainy sheen that's completely understandable for a film of this vintage. The mono audio track gets the job done with no notable issues. There are zero extras. 8/21/09
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