From Hell It Came Information

From Hell It Came is a 1957 American horror film and science fiction film directed by Dan Milner and written by Jack Milner.

Plot

A South Seas island prince is wrongly convicted of murder and executed by having a knife driven into his heart, the result of a plot by a witch doctor (the true murderer) who resented the prince's friendly relations with American scientists stationed on a field laboratory on the island. The prince is buried in a hollow tree trunk and forgotten about until nuclear radiation reanimates him in the form of the "Tabanga", a scowling tree stump. The monster escapes from the laboratory and kills several people, including the witch doctor, whom the Tabanga pushes down a hill to be impaled on his own crown of shark teeth. The creature cannot be stopped, burned, or trapped. Only when a crack rifle shot from one of the scientists drives the knife (which still protrudes from the creature's chest) all the way through its heart does it finally die and sink into the swamp.

Cast

• Tod Andrews - Dr. William Arnold
• Tina Carver - Dr. Terry Mason
• Linda Watkins - Mrs. Mae Kilgore
• John McNamara - Prof. Clark
• Gregg Palmer - Kimo
• Suzanne Ridgeway - Korey

Production

The iconic Tabanga monster was designed by Paul Blaisdell (also known for his work on The She Creature, Invasion of the Saucer Men, Not of This Earth and It! The Terror from Beyond Space) but was manufactured by Don Post Studios. This was the second and last feature film to be produced by the Milner brothers.

Release

It was released by Allied Artists. Warner Home Video released it on DVD in 2009.

Reception

According to Tim Healey, it deserves an honored place in the canon of the world's worst movies. However, in Leonard Maltin's movie guidebook, the film was rated at 1 stars (only the second-lowest of seven ratings available), with the comment that "As walking-tree movies go, this is at the top of the list." Bruce Eder from AllMovie panned the film, writing, "The sheer badness of Dan Milner's From Hell It Came is mitigated ever so slightly by the efforts of Paul Blaisdell, who created the vengeful tree-creature called the Tabonga... All of which leaves ridiculously campy fun as the sole reason to watch this very mildly entertaining misfire, which is funnier in the telling than the watching".James Rolfe reviewed it in his Cinemassacre's Monster Madness series, acknowledging the absurdity of having a tree monster "come from hell" rather than a demon or oni.