Tagline: “Frightmare! Born of jungle witchcraft! Created by a curse!”
WTF Factor: ***
Notable Announcement:
Kimo: “I promise you all, I shall come back from Hell and make you pay for your crimes.”
You haven’t seen it all until you’ve seen this one. It’s truly bad, but not without its amusements. It’s a rough trip for twenty-first century sensibilities, though.
Synopsis: We begin with a “native” ceremony [Pacific island-adjacent, by way of pre-1950s colonialism]. Kimo (Gregg Palmer), the son of the late tribal chief, is staked out in the dirt.
The witch-doctor Tano (Robert Swan) and chief-wannabe Maranka (Baynes Barron) accuse Kimo of killing his sick father by taking him to the Americans for treatment of the Black Plague. Kimo says it was Tano and Maranka who poisoned the chief and calls on his wife Korey (Suzanne Ridgeway) to back him up. No deal [she looks shady as hell]. Kimo swears revenge on Tano, Maranka, and Korey. At the medicine man’s signal, a ceremonial knife is driven through Kimo’s heart.
Then everyone gets up and has a happy dance. The ceremony is secretly observed by Mrs. Kilgore (Linda Watkins), who runs away.
We cut to our two American “heroes,” Dr. Bill Arnold (Todd Andrews) and Professor Clark (John McNamara). They complain about the island climate and the native drums. They suspect that the drums mean trouble related to the chief dying. Not to mention, the Americans dropped a test bomb 1500 miles away and the fallout drifted over the island, which is the subject of the scientists’ study. Clark says the radiation levels are no worse than a dental x-ray [a continuous x-ray? There’s a reason for those aprons at the dentist’s office.]. The natives know about the fallout and, quite reasonably, blame the Americans.
Bill: They think of it as some kind of devil dust, a curse brought on by the evil Americans. [Are they wrong?]
Bill and Clark believe it is Tano who is poisoning the minds of the natives. Anyway, Bill wants to go back to the States but his romantic interest Terry won’t agree to marry him.
Bill: Why did I have to fall in love with a dedicated female scientist?…There are some times I could kick her beautiful…teeth in. Here I offer her the earth, the moon, the stars…
Clark: …and she prefers test tubes and a tiny Pacific atoll. Forget her! Find somebody else.
Bill: I’ve tried! Dozens of times.
Suddenly they hear a scream. Mrs. Kilgore has been grabbed by a native, who runs off when the cavalry arrives. Meanwhile, Kimo is buried upright in the tribal graveyard.
Mrs. Kilgore wakes up and tells the Americans that the “bloomin’ cannibals” killed Kimo, in some sort of Cockney/Australian-adjacent accent. She runs the trading post and has been widowed twice. Bill chastises her for going by the native cemetery during a ritual.
Clark says he’s going to ask for more help from the “International Commission” in Washington.
Next we see a helicopter taking off from an aircraft carrier, accompanied by cocktail lounge music. [What ya wanna bet there’s a lady on board.] Sure enough, Dr. Terry Mason (Tina Carver), Bill’s target, arrives to help out. Meanwhile we see the ground over Kimo’s grave heaving and cracking as the white people drive right across the tribal cemetery.
After Terry makes friends with Mrs. Kilgore and settles in at the post, two natives, Norgu (Lee Rhodes) and Dory (Lenmana Guerin), come by secretly. Dory has scar tissue from radiation burns [?? I thought the radiation levels were low] and Terry suggests using “Formula X-37” to rebuild the tissue.
Korey struts her stuff up to Chief Maranka’s hut, but he’s not having any. He’s already replaced her with Naomie (Tani Marsh), who is picking poison berries for the darts Maranka intends to use to kill the Americans. Maranka warns Korey that the darts could be for her too.
Bill takes Terry for a walk, with welling romantic music in the background. She mostly fends off his advances.
Bill: You do love me, don’t you? Admit it.
Terry: I don’t love you.
Bill: Then, why did you kiss me back?
Terry: I don’t know…Maybe it’s my metabolism.
Just then, Terry sees a ceremonial marker fall over in the native cemetery [great place for a romantic interlude]. She asks about the cemetery and Kimo.
Bill: His grave should be somewhere over there.
Terry [big smile]: I’d like to see it. [When Bill gives her the stink eye] Oh, it’s taboo territory.
Bill: Uh huh.
Terry [even bigger smile]: Well, who’s afraid of the local medicine man? [Bill shrugs and they enter the cemetery.]
They find a stump growing out of Kimo’s grave.
Terry: Could a tree trunk grow out of a coffin?
Clark: Who knows? Science doesn’t have all the answers yet.
Norgu and Dory return to the Americans and say that Kimo’s curse is coming true. It’s a tribal legend that in the past, a chief was murdered and came back as a tree monster.
Norgu: This tree monster, it was torn loose from the ground by a bolt of lightning. It roamed the island, killed many people. They called it [duh duh dun] Tabanga.
Clark: Tabanga? What does that mean?
Norgu: Creature of revenge.
Clark suggest they have a look. They find a beating heart [that looks more like a pulsating anus] with the ceremonial dagger sticking out, surrounded by green ooze, like blood. Oh, and it’s radioactive too. [It’s the Fifties, after all.]
Norgu begs them to destroy the growth. However, orders come from Washington to dig up the stump and determine the effects of radiation on it. Terry is delighted.
Terry: Well, that’s that!…The first thing to do is to go out and dig up the monster and bring it to the lab…
Clark: I imagine the natives are in an uproar. Like Norgu, they probably feel the monster is another Tabanga.
Bill: If moving that monster violates another tribal law, we’ll be in for it. You know, we’re greatly outnumbered here and they could easily overpower us.
Clark: And don’t forget what Norgu said about it being taboo for strangers to go near the Tabanga.
Terry [emphatically]: Well, I say let’s get started.
Bill wants to throw the stump in the quicksand but Clark is also intrigued. Terry thinks Bill is just worried about her.
Tano tells Maranka he has developed a potion that will make the Tabanga his slave. Norgu will be first to die. Maranka reminds him Korey must die too.
Korey goes to the Americans and warns them of Maranka and Tano’s plans. She begs to stay at the camp. The Americans sneak out that night and uproot the Tabanga. They place it on a lab table for examination.
The Tabanga’s heart is slowing down.
Terry: Couldn’t we try to energize the adrenal gland with an electrode resistor? [Science!]
Bill argues they should just throw the thing in the quicksand, but Terry is adamant on saving the monster. What about Formula 447? It could work. They set up an I.V. and go to bed, since Terry says the formula will take at least eight hours to work. [Great call, as it turns out.]
The next morning the lab is demolished and the Tabanga is gone. Unsurprisingly we see it slowly wandering the jungle. Clark thinks the natives did the damage, silly man.
Naomie goes swimming and Korey stalks her with a knife. Girl fight! Naomie hits Korey over the head with a tiny branch and Korey falls into the Tabanga’s arms [which is the only way this slooow moving monster will catch her].
Tabanga unceremoniously dumps Korey in the quicksand, where she sinks like a rock.
Naomie runs home to tell Maranka that the Tabanga is on the move. Tano’s not too happy to hear about it either. Meanwhile Maranka is about to meet the Tabanga.
Maranka throws his spear from about three feet away and misses. The Tabanga sort of squeezes him and exit Maranka. The natives are disturbed by the murder and Tano makes plans to kill the Tabanga.
The Americans learn that the Tabanga is loose.
Oh well, Terry didn’t want the monster to do what monsters do.
Bill: Don’t blame yourself, Terry. The radiation dormant in the monster must have set off a chain reaction. [Science!]
Tano has the natives dig and disguise a large pit. He acts as bait for the monster, who does indeed step into the hole. The natives then throw in torches, start a big fire, and then, of course, everyone walks away. Needless to say, Tabanga rises again.
A couple of natives encounter the monster and go to the Americans for help. The
Tabanga finds Tano just about the time Mrs. Kilgore arrives at the camp. The “girls” insist on coming with the men to hunt the monster. Everybody gets guns and heads into the jungle.
Luckily for the Tabanga, Tano trips over a log and that’s it for the witch doctor.
The Americans tromp through the jungle, with the women bringing up the rear. Mrs. Kilgore keeps up a running stream of meaningless dialogue. Terry fall behind to fix her shoe [she’s wearing backless wedges] and of course, backs into the Tabanga.
The Tabanga carries Terry toward the quicksand as the group eventually follows. They shoot at the knife while the monster prepares to dump Terry in the quicksand.
Luckily Terry misses the quicksand and the Tabanga turns around to give the guys a clear shot. Bill hits the knife, which drives it in, and the monster goes down into the quicksand like a sack of potatoes. Terry runs to Bill and we know that she won’t have any more silly scientist thoughts after this. The movie ends when Mrs. Kilgore makes a pass at Clark.
Thoughts:
I loved this movie as a little kid and boy, is it bad! I was even annoyed when I read Ed Naha’s Horrors: From Screen to Scream and his review read, “And to hell it can go!” [This was not original to Naha, but its true origins seem to be lost in antiquity.] How dare he? I was a big fan of jungle movies when I was young and the idea of quicksand terrified me. I remember researching how to survive in quicksand, not realizing it wasn’t going to be a significant problem in my life. However, if I ever find any, I’m ready.
The attitudes in this movie were Neanderthal even back in the 1950s. Oh, the things I didn’t pay attention to in my early youth (in truth, the only thing I cared about was the monster):
- The natives are played by chubby white people with black shoe polish in their hair. [Of course they were, in 1957.]
- There is a disturbing tone of colonialism and occasionally flat-out racism throughout the movie.
- The misogyny is pervasive.
The movie itself is not well directed, with poor lighting and an annoying score that would have been cliched in the Forties. The acting is mostly tedious, except for Tina Carver’s unholy grin. Carver is arguably the worst screamer I have ever encountered in a horror movie. She sounds like someone is strangling a baritone rooster. Couldn’t they afford to dub someone else in?
Notable Credit: “Introducing Linda Watkins”
Watkins plays Mrs. Kilgore, and usually an Introduction credit is reserved for ingenues. Watkins was 49 years old at the time of filming. Oddly enough, she acted in multiple movies in the early 1930s, so From Hell It Came was actually a comeback [?] for her. Her character is annoying, the accent is atrocious, and she’s the liveliest part of the movie.
I’m surprised that my young self was so patient with this movie, because there is no monster action for 45 minutes, and what there is after that is sparse. The Tabanga was designed by an uncredited Paul Blaisdell, who neither constructed the suit nor played the monster. Apparently the monster suit only allows the wearer to lurch unsteadily, making it necessary for the victims to practically hurl themselves at the monster.
Finally, I can’t let this review end without saluting the male headgear in the movie.
The native costumes are all brightly printed fabrics and adorned with every bit of decorative gewgaw lying around. The head wear, on the other hand, is amazing. Someone worked hard on those funeral hats.*
*Addendum: According to Bill Warren’s Keep Watching the Skies! American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties, 21st Century Edition, the Hollywood trade papers included a credit for “Hat Design” by Jerado De Cordovier [that credit is not present on my DVD copy]. So, credit where credit is due.
Whether this movie is ‘so bad, it’s good’ or just plain bad is up to you. As a group view, in the right mood, it can be quite amusing.
Quick bits:
- Milner Brothers Productions produced only two movies, The Phantom From 10,000 Leagues (1954) and this one. Thank goodness.
- The Tabanga supposedly inspired Stan Lee, along with Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby, to create the early version of Groot in 1960 [I can’t confirm this but it’s a good story.]
- Apparently the producers couldn’t get the name of the monster straight. This is the opening shot of the trailer; the monster is clearly enunciated as the Tabanga in the movie.
Suggested double feature: Two possibilities here: If you want to go the ‘so bad it’s good’ route, how about The Happening (2008), or if you want to play it straight, The Day of the Triffids (1962).
Tagline for Coming Attraction: “The World’s Most Evil Vampire Lives Again!”
