From Hell It Came [Blu-ray]

Director: Dan Milner Dan Milner

Overview

This horror movie, set on an isolated island in the South Pacific centers around a hapless native prince who receives a death sentence from the tribal witch doctor after he is caught associating with the American scientists who have come to check into the left-over radiation from an atomic bomb explosion. As the witch doctor stabs the prince in the chest, the young man swears that he will have his revenge. The shaman then buries the royal corpse upright in his coffin. Time passes and a terrifying tree stump grows from the prince's grave. With a fierce expression etched into the trunk, it begins to walk the island and exact its horrific revenge on everyone involved in his murder. The tree stump disappears when it steps into some quicksand and slowly slips back into the earth from which it came.

Product Details

Release Date:	04/25/2017
UPC:	0888574477837
Original Release:	1957
Rating:	NR
Source:	Warner Archives
Presentation:	[B&W, Wide Screen]
Language:	English
Time:	1:11:00
Sales rank:	14,509

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Tod Andrews	Dr. William Arnold
Tina Carver	Dr. Terry Mason
Gregg Palmer	Kimo
Linda Watkins	Mrs. Kilgore
John McNamara	Prof. Clark
Robert Swan	Witch Doctor Tano
Baynes Barron	Chief Maranka
Suzanne Ridgway	Korey
Mark Sheeler	Eddie
Lee Rhodes	Norgu
Grace Mathews	Orchid
Tani Marsh	Naomi
Chester Hayes	Maku
Lenmana Guerin	Dori

Technical Credits

Dan Milner

Dan Milner	Director,Producer,Screenwriter
Paul Blaisdell	Special Effects
James H. Donnelly	Special Effects

Editorial Reviews

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. Now, the creature itself it pretty ludicrous in its actual on-screen appearances, but given the fact that we're talking about a killer tree-stump (and this is NOT the only killer tree-stump movie in creation -- The Navy Vs. The Night Monsters would fit into the sub-genre as well) and a low-budget, the fact that Blaisdell was able to devise anything at all that, even for a fraction of a second, might be scary, is the one part of the movie that does work. Nothing else does -- not the acting, despite the presence of once-promising theater hopeful Todd Andrews in the lead; and certainly not the script, which makes little sense, and is also terminally talkie for a full half-hour (which seems like an hour) following the ridiculous introduction, loading us up with exposition leading nowhere. So the viewer, in theaters in 1957 and at home ever since, takes what they can get, in this case, the Tabonga, shambling its way slowly across a faux south sea island set (which makes Gilligan's Island look like it was shot on location). Milner wasn't a good enough director to establish true menace (or any mood), and none of the actors here is remotely good enough (or sufficiently involved with their role) to convince us that they can't outrun a tree stump. 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. A major newspaper's movie guide used to have a one-line critique of this movie, based on its title: "And to Hell it can go!"