You say you're tired of winter? You say you'd like to see something coming up from the ground besides slush? Well, do we have a "green thumb" flick for you! When you see it, you'll agree that...
By DAVE DUGGINS Of all the scary things you could imagine to build a horror movie around, what’s the most frightening you can come up with? How about nature run amok--swarms of killer bees, birds suddenly imbued with killing intelligence, a shark with a seemingly human desire for revenge? Or technology gone mad—a computer-controlled house turning savagely on its owner, a car that kills for its own inexplicable reasons, terrible warrior machines from our own future traveling backward in time to destroy the human race? What about people gone bad? Immoral humans? Immortal humans? Godlike men and women, possessed of the power to create and destroy? Normal humans, twisted by the pressure of society? Just out of curiosity … did anybody out there pick possessed tree stumps?
Okay. Just checking. So let’s talk ambulatory trees, folks. Renfield dug through the fetid undervaults—the sub-basement of the basement of bad horror films—and hurled up this horrible celluloid curse for me to have my hideous way with. It’s a wonderful little pile of peat mulch called From Hell It Came, and, my friends, they do not come worse. Directed by Dan Milner, who helmed the similarly schlocky Phantom from 10,000 Leagues, and written by Richard Bernstein (Why Must I Die?) with Jack Milner in his only screenwriting credit, this delightful little tale concerns the son of a South Pacific tribal chieftain, put to death by his own father for hanging out with Americans. Hey, I’ve lived in foreign countries for the past fourteen years. It could happen. Anyway, it’s death by sacrificial dagger for poor old Kimo, played by Gregg Palmer. His performance is appropriately wooden. The Americans in question are the Scientists Who Accidentally Rained Radioactive Impurities on the Innocent. This was already a cliché in 1957, so you can imagine how well it dates when you watch it in the year 2000.
And just so Gregg Palmer doesn’t have to compete with a kitchen chair all by himself, a bored guy from the prop department wheels in Tod Andrews and John McNamara (or maybe it was just a couple of those life-size cardboard cutouts they use for promotion in video stores; who could tell the difference?). They blow ten minutes of utterly turgid screen time on one of those stilted "as you know, Bob" kind of conversations that is obviously pure plot exposition. This is how we find out that the island has recently been sprinkled with fallout from an H-bomb test. Never should have carried this far, no sir. It’s just that this freak typhoon swooped down and grabbed up the evil stuff, slinging it around like Satan with a saltshaker. Whoops. This is bad, right? This is foreshadowing. This is bad foreshadowing. Screenwriting students, take note. The scientists are there to test radiation levels, which are apparently normal. But since they just happen to be around, they decide to treat the natives for some kind of plague that’s killing them all off. Just how these scientists have the expertise to treat a complex medical problem without diagnostic equipment when their specialty is hydrogen radiation is never explained. Then again, what the heck am I complaining about? They don’t explain how that radiation can turn a dead guy into a walking tree, either, but that happens too. We get to find out about this in a scene that actually manages to accomplish two things at once: introducing the Female Doctor who Will Fall in Love with the Handsome Young Scientist and forwarding the plot. A little. The plot never moves much faster than one of Tolkien’s ents in the rings trilogy, but I guess that’s appropriate too, isn’t it? Trees move pretty slow. Yep.
The tree is growing out of Kimo’s gravesite, and Our Intrepid Scientists pretty much run the damned thing over in their jeep. Why they’re allowed to drive through the tribal graveyard is just another one of those things that is never explained. Later, they find it again in a scene in which Dr. Arnold is trying unsuccessfully to put some moves on Dr. Mason—the kind of moves that would get him thrown in jail for sexual harassment here in our brave new millennium. Dr. Mason notices that the "tree" growing out of Kimo’s grave site is – well, kinda funny compared to the rest of the trees on the island. Yeah. A little different. Like it has a human face, and there’s a big dagger sticking out of it. Subtle storytelling at its best. And in case you didn’t figure it out, one of the natives tells us it’s a Tabonga, a vengeful spirit risen in Kimo’s name. Kinda like Pumpkinhead, the primary difference being that Pumpkinhead was a good movie. Having been warned that it’s bound to be bad juju, Our Scientists dig it up for some good old-fashioned Fifties monster movie style studying—including the use of a stethoscope. Why anyone would want to use a stethoscope on a stump is—that’s right, folks—one of those things that is never properly explained. Well, whatever. The tree has a heartbeat. Too bad the movie doesn’t! Using a handy serum (these guys have a serum for plagues, they’ve got a serum for ailing tree spirits—why don’t they just whip out their cure for cancer and get it over with?), they shoot up the tree guy. Serum combines with nuclear fallout and presto! Instant monster.
The monster itself is one of the film’s bigger problems. This is mostly due to the fact that it’s not scary. Not even a little. In fact, it’s really sort of cute. It kind of looks like a cross between an old man with a really long beard and the Scotty dog from 101 Dalmations. It’s another one of those Paul Blaisdell foam-rubber specials (It! The Terror from Beyond Space, It Conquered the World, Phantom from 10,000 Leagues), but definitely not his best. It’s really not his best at all when it moves, because, you know, the damned tree doesn’t have legs. So. It. Moves. Very. Slowly. Like the movie. I consider myself something of a connoisseur of bad movies, and this is absolutely the worst thing you can say about ‘em: it’s boring. Horribly-paced, lethargic, padded with pointless scenes of dialogue and "subplot" action (like a catfight between a couple of tribal babes) and a whole lot of scenes of the monster lurching around aimlessly, trying to walk. Like the movie, the tree goes nowhere. And it doesn’t even do us the courtesy of going nowhere fast. It takes forever to get there.
Our Heroic Scientists end up killing the thing by forcing it into a pit full of quicksand. It should have happened sooner. Like somewhere around the first ten minutes of the opening reel. Now I’m sort of curious as to what Phantom from 10,000 Leagues is like. I guess I’m just one of those guys who always slows down to look at car accidents … On a totally unrelated note: Go immediately to your local video outlet and shell out fifteen bucks for a copy of the Simitar release 100 Years of Horror. A boxed set of five videotapes hosted by Christopher Lee, the series features loads of vintage Universal and Hammer horror footage and interviews with lots of directors, producers and stars. The transfer quality is wretched, but the content more than makes up for it. Fascinating stuff. Thanks, Dave. It seems that Tabonga's "bark" was much worse than his bite! Or, those scenes of him "lumbering" around proved he had the acting "timber" of a toothpick! Okay...I'll stop now... Article copyright Dave Duggins |
