cinema history class: from hell it came (1957)

The session: Spring is in the Air, and the Plants are Growing
Keith shows four movies about carnivorous plants.

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 1: From Hell It Came (1957)
Directed by Dan Milner

My Level of Prior Knowledge:
Never heard of it.

Plot Synopsis:
On a Polynesian island, they executed an innocent man. To take his revenge, he rose from the grave in the form of Tabanga -- the tree that kills. 

Plot:
Grading From Hell It Came is surprisingly difficult. On the one hand, it’s objectively kind of a piece of crap. On the other hand… I had a pretty good time watching it. It’s the kind of movie where you spend most of the runtime shaking your head, but you’re still entertained enough that you don’t regret the experience. In the highly technical terminology of cinema criticism: it’s dumb, but it’s fun-dumb.

One thing that struck me immediately is that the supposedly South Pacific island natives look suspiciously like white guys from middle America who wandered in from a Rotary Club meeting. Some of them even have neatly trimmed 1950s sideburns. The effect is mildly surreal. It’s as if the island culture evolved entirely within a suburban barbershop in Ohio.

Tonally, the movie is all over the map. At times it feels like an episode of Gilligan's Island—the tropical setting, the earnest-but-goofy dialogue, the sense that everyone is one coconut radio away from a sitcom plot. Other moments veer closer to The Three Stooges, though notably without the eye-pokes and frying pans. Instead you get a lot of characters wandering around looking confused while a homicidal tree lumbers toward them.

And speaking of wandering around, we get a classic movie quicksand scene. Now, I’m perfectly willing to forgive the usual cinematic misunderstandings about how quicksand works. Movies and television have been getting that wrong for decades, and at this point it’s practically a tradition. But what I cannot forgive is the fact that this particular patch of quicksand is emitting steam. Steam. From quicksand. Why? Is the island built on top of a geothermal spa? Is the quicksand boiling? Is Tabanga running a sauna franchise? The film offers no explanation.

The monster itself, however, is actually pretty good. Tabanga—the vengeful walking tree—is a genuinely memorable design. The bark-covered body looks convincingly wooden, the branch-like arms are nicely creepy, and the face has this magnificent carved wooden frown that gives the creature a weirdly expressive look. If you were six or seven years old and watching this in a dark movie theater in 1957, I can absolutely see how this thing might have scared the hell out of you.

Another pleasant surprise is the score. For a movie this goofy, the music is oddly effective. It’s dramatic, atmospheric, and sometimes far better than the scenes it’s accompanying. The composer clearly understood the assignment even if the rest of the production occasionally wandered off to chase butterflies.

The movie also has a faint but unmistakable anti-nuclear message, which was a staple of 1950s science fiction and horror. The suggestion is that atomic experimentation has tampered with forces that humanity doesn’t fully understand, helping unleash the monstrous Tabanga. It’s not exactly subtle, but it fits comfortably alongside the era’s broader anxieties about radiation, mutation, and mankind’s enthusiasm for pressing buttons labeled “DO NOT PRESS.”

And yet… damn, this movie is stooopid. I mean that affectionately, but still: stooopid.

For this particular screening, I also had a unique viewing experience. For various reasons, none of the other regulars could make it, so I ended up being the only person in the class. Watching a movie like this alone is a strange thing—you don’t get the shared laughter, the groans, or the running commentary that usually makes these nights so much fun. Keith did kind of make up for it, reacting with me -- more actively than he usually reacts when the room has more people in it. I can’t say for sure how everyone else would have rated From Hell It Came, but I do know one thing: Joe would have given it a 10.