User reviews

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 was 4 or 5 when we saw this. It would be another thirteen years or so before it would be shown again on television, but my brother and sister and watched it that night back in the mid-70's. What a hoot!

Around that same time acquired a full-sheet poster of the movie from a now-defunct movie warehouse in Philly. Wished now I would have kept it, but I traded it for some awesome old western lobby cards.

The "Tobonga" is one of my favorite childhood monsters. I remember the next day after watching it the first time I rode my tricycle up over the hill beyond where we lived to join another group of kids. My brother pointed to a stump that was part of a fence post and warned me about the tree-monster! I turned and pedaled all the way home as fast as I could! That old stump is still there! That was in '64 or 65'.

Loved the quicksand! Always been a fan of jungle flicks, so I must credit this awful little film for that!

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.

Yes, by todays standards..Yada, Yada.. This one perhaps even by '50s standards was a bit low budget..

However, if you remember this one from when you were a kid, then you can still hold a place for it in your monster closet 8-) As a kid this thing scared me on the big screen, and I'm so glad I didn't know what I know today to spoil it for me. A very special time when we could go down town and watch a couple of these "monster" flicks on a Saturday.

Not to mention the fun time spent looking at all the stills out front and in the lobby !!

I still hold those original feelings inside and can enjoy watching these again, with the added enjoyment in the fact that I WANT to enjoy them and revisit my past.

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.

I had a great time watching this, in a so bad its good sort of way. Its black & white, from the 50's , low budget, unintentionally funny and filled with wooden acting, plot holes and ridiculous dialogue. At times I couldn't believe what I was seeing, really? This is meant to a horror movie, a tree is walking around killing people. The killer tree costume is cheap and laughable. The fact that a lady scientist is checking the tree stump for a heartbeat is...bizarre.

Story is unique to say the least and follows a wrongfully accused South Seas prince who is executed, but vows revenge and soon returns as a walking, killing tree stump. We also follow a group of scientists and a frisky older widow lady with a terrible Australian accent The tree monster is a mixture of voodoo, radiation (as all 1950's horrors movies were obliged to have) and X39 -a random drug the lady scientist cooked up.

An unintentional comedy bumps the rating up, might even be worth a higher rating because I won't forget about this gem any time soon.

My late wife and I used to have a running joke (originating around the time of Sonny Bono's skiing accident) about the inevitable revenge upon people by the oft' mistreated trees. The "plot" of this grade-Z flick isn't exactly that, but when a tree stump becomes capable of slow, lumbering motion, I literally dare you not to laugh out loud!

I always ask this question when reviewing a film like When Hell It Came, was the cast offered nothing better?

Set in the South Seas after some atomic testing scientists Tod Andrews, Tina Carver, and William Clark are there to study the effects of atomic radiation on the natives. It seems as though some typhoon blew the atomic debris in their direction.

But there's some nasty native politics brewing, Gregg Palmer son of the old chief is executed on some trumped up charge concocted by the new head guy and corroborated by Palmer's own wife who is two timing him. Before he dies Palmer says he's coming back to settle accounts.

By God he does when his casket is buried vertically in the ground with him growing out like a tree, one ugly looking tree with a knife that was used to kill Palmer sticking from the bark. When he's uprooted he moves like a Triffid and he's got lots of scores to settle.

They call what he is a Tabanga and he's both ugly and quite laughable instead of scary. The cast just looks anxious more like they're waiting for their checks to clear. Linda Watkins who plays the woman who runs the trading post hams it up with her cockney accent like she just came from a road company of My Fair Lady.

If you're into bad science fiction for laughs this is your film.

I won't go into the plot, which was told by previous posters. All I can say is this movie is a blast from the past. My brothers and I used to catch this and many other movies of its kind on a local Saturday night horror show called WEIRD. FROM HELL IT CAME and the Tabanga are old, dear friends. I own a DVD of it as well as a lobby card featuring a "terrifying" climactic scene of leading lady Tina Carver being abducted by the tree monster. The Tabanga is one of 50's monster maker Paul Blaisdell's best and most imaginative creations--right up there with the "cucumber monster" Beulah, from IT CONQUERED THE WORLD. He worked with all these cheapie movie producers and made some of the most memorable beasts of the 50s. This movie is highly recommended for bad cinema buffs or lovers of nostalgia!

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.

There are a number of movies that my high school friends and I used to joke about. They are mostly the campy works of the 50's that showed up on television on the late show. This was one of our favorites. The soul of a fallen native being brought to life in a tree stump with a scowl on its face. Now my friends claimed that if you looked carefully, you could see the thing had shoes. I never saw this. What is most striking to me is that the natives seemed to be white men with black grease paint on their faces; some looked sort of Italian. They also spoke with the strangest timbre that didn't seem to fit their situation. Like the mummy movies, the mobility of the thing didn't seem to offer much of a threat. In a confrontation, one should only have to walk fast; I guess it's the old element of surprise. If you see this, don't take it too seriously. Be happy that we have a battery of old horror movies that gave us such joy.

The best actor is the tree. Tobonga walks slower than a zombie, yet manages to catch and kill people (not really sure how it kills either other than the one woman feinting and him carrying her and dumping her in the quicksand..... (am I the only one who thought when they grew up that quicksand would be a much bigger problem than it is?)

This movie has 3.7 stars and I can't for the life of me figure out where the other 2.7 come from. For anyone that rated it over a 1, please explain what you would do to make this movie any worse.

This stands out as being one of worst sci-fi movies from the 50s I've seen, and that's saying a lot.

Doctors have landed on "the south sea island", to help the natives with illness, but the local witch doctor doesn't appreciate the interference. and of course, there is the witch doctor's love triangle issue. one of the native villagers DOES co-operate with the medical doctors, and it doesn't go well for him. Now there is a walking tree stump (!) walking the island, knocking people off one by one. it's quite amusing... it walks so slowly, a child could easily outrun (out-walk) it, and yet it's still killing people. Stars Tod Andrews, Tina Carver, and Linda Watkins. It's all pretty silly, but plays well enough. It's rated 3.5, after only 900 votes on imdb, but it's really not so bad. There are so many worse horror films rated higher than this! it's all played a little tongue in cheek. Not so bad. Shows on Turner Classics now and then. This appears to be one of only THREE films that Dan Milner directed... looks like he spent most of his career editing films. The script is a bit silly, and some of the acting is cheesy, but its all in good fun.

A tree trunk, moving at the speed of 0,5 mph, catches everyone and somehow kills them. This happens to very unconvincing looking Hawaiian people in a very fake Hawaiian environment, while a California born actress is babbling in a fake Cokney accent .

Mostly unattractive actors, appalling accents, embarrassing special effects and ludicrous storyline result in a film that can be very much enjoyed when you fill yourself up with a gallon of booze. Yes, the 'so bad it's good' factor is definitely there.

However, I still have to meditate on the fact that grown-ups were involved in making this film.

Clumsy amateur dramatics on this film. Not a patch on other films from this era or genre. The vengeful tree stump is quite amusingly unique. But the suspence is weak, while the dialogue is laughable and the entertainment value is limited. Not bad enough to be funny, so one for the kids to watch instead. 3/10.

So I gave this atrocity an 8 because it scared the bejesus out of me when I was a youngster. I mean trees that come to life in general are pretty creepy (Think Poltergeist) This movie has so many facets of bad its hard to list them all. Bad make up bad acting bad accents bad cat fight (Yes, its possible !) bad monster reminds me of an Easter candy - I think its the eyes But as with a lot of really bad movies I feel compelled to watch again on occasion. Good fun for the whole family !!

Another classic from the 50's,a time when imagination was used, unlike so many of today's productions. This is quite simply a popcorn classic,a movie that will keep your attention for many different reasons. The plot is very straightforward, the highlight of course being the "monster", which has to be seen to be believed!

The film can never be called boring as it rips along, all 71 minutes of it, at a fair old pace. Regarding the actors,Tod Andrews and Tina Carver as the good doctors are fine, but it's Linda Watkins as Mrs Mae Kilgore that steals the show for me. No matter what people say about this movie, it will always be remembered in some form, hated or loved. Me? I love it!

In the 1950's, we had giant bugs, animals and dinosaurs, so it was a matter of time before somebody came up with the idea of a killer tree. Here is the result.

On a South Seas island, a man is wrongly accused of murder and vows to get revenge. He does in the form of a killer tree known as Tabanga, a local native spirit. A pair of American scientists, a man and a woman first notice something strange coming up from his grave, which turns out to be Tabanga. After uprooting him, they take the tree back to their lab for tests and they discover a heart beat and the following morning, the tree has escaped. The tree is also radioactive. It then starts to kill people and an attempt to burn the tree to death by natives is unsuccessful and the tree continues to kill people until one of the Americans shoots it and it falls to its death into a swamp and sinks. Through all this, the two American scientists fall in love with each other.

The cast is mostly unknowns, including Tod Andrews and Tina Carver as the scientists.

Despite the cheap looking tree monster and low budget, this movie was rather enjoyable and also unintentionally funny, especially some of the walking tree scenes. I taped this when it came on Channel 5 during the early hours of the morning.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5.