From Hell It Came (1957)

To me, this movie is perfection.

Purely Joyful Movie!

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

This is a very scary movie. It has a good story line. It also has good acting. I have no idea why people do not like it. It is a very underrated movie. It is very scary. It scarier then A Nightmare on elm street.

...the guy who had to wear that tree outfit!I may be going out on a limb, but this is truly one of the worst, it's not even funny.And those stupid Americans always messing with Nature and the local natives. They never leave well-enough alone.Then there's the native chief who throws his spear above and over Tabanga. Who taught that guy to aim spears?And Tabanga doesn't even make good firewood. More lighter fluid!The wooden acting was the worst, especially that Brit Twit with the bad accent.The final quip from the native about woodstock proved the producers were "barking" up the wrong tree.This didn't come from hell, it came from Hollywood, right next door.

I remember this inane movie from the "Creature Features" that used to air from 8:30 to 10:00, Saturday night, in NYC in the 1970s (whether on channel 9 or channel 11 I can't recall, though "Chiller" had better movies than "Creature Features").Even though my bedtime was nine--I was about eight--my folks would let me stay up till ten on Saturday to watch this foolishness.The creature, who looked like a walking tree with a wizened, exaggerated face, was called a TOBBONGA or a TOBOGGAN or something. There was a knife sticking out of its heart. He had been sacrificed--or executed--for some reason (I think he was framed by "the bad guy") and was then buried standing upright in a hollow tree trunk. The witch doctor is the bad guy's descendant. He wears a crown made of, like, long, sharp bones--maybe the tusks of warthogs (which, as I recall, do NOT live on South Pacific islands, but, rather, on the southern African veldt). The toboggan throws him down the mountainside after knocking off his hat, and he gets impaled on the spiky bones.At the end, our heroes kill the rampaging toboggan by shooting at the protruding knife and driving it further into the creature's "heart." And they didn't even get to ride the toboggan . . .

Todd Andrews the nominal star of this film had a film and TV career that ran the gamete from bad to good and even great. Early in his career he went by the name of Michael Ames and stared in such films as 1944's "Voodoo Man" opposite Lugosi,Zucco,and Carradine "and Return of the Ape Man" with the same baddies.Later he had his own TV series "The Gray Ghost" 1957-58. He was also in the last broadcast episode of Twilight Zone " The Bewitchin' Pool" 1964. He also appeared in "In Harm's Way" 1965 with John Wayne and Kirk Douglas.Gregg Palmer who plays Kimo, made his mark playing tough guys, both good and bad.He was in a lot of movie and TV westerns and detective shows. His other foray in 1950s black and white horror films was in " Zombies of Mora Tau" made the same year as "From Hell It Came'. He was also in "The Creature Walks Among Us" in 1956.Actually, this is the best black and white movie made in 1957 about a walking tree.