Fans looking for absurd, cheesy entertainment from the 1950s will be well served by this cheap and schlocky B-movie, forever remembered in the hearts of bad film buffs as the one about the "killer tree". Forget THE GIANT CLAW, this is the real stuff. Anybody who's seen one of those old-fashioned low-budget 'jungle' movies made on a set in Hollywood will find FROM HELL IT CAME packed full of the stock clichés present from the period, from 'witch doctors' throwing magic exploding powder into flames, to strangely American-looking natives padding out the cast of village extras, to a script which vainly tries to make scientifically-plausible sense of the chaos whilst keeping a healthy level of mumbo-jumbo native superstition bubbling merrily away.
At the end of the day, the film concerns the activities of a walking tree to kill people. The special effects used to animate said tree are appalling; basically it's just some unlucky guy in a silly rubber suit, completed with a goofy face and painted-on eyes. The flexibility of the suit is zero, with just a couple of rubber arms sticking out from each side, so at any point the monster is required to perform an action, it just ends up looking ridiculous. The cast isn't much better; aside from dependable (but ageing) male lead Tod Andrews, there don't appear to be many real actors in the cast list. Most annoying of all is Linda Watkins' character. The American Watkins speaks with a truly grating Cockney accent all of the time, then later on turns out to have supposedly come from Australia! It beggars belief, it really does. Just another whacked-out element to an already incredible movie. An immortal delight for bad-film buffs everywhere.
At the end of the day, the film concerns the activities of a walking tree to kill people. The special effects used to animate said tree are appalling; basically it's just some unlucky guy in a silly rubber suit, completed with a goofy face and painted-on eyes. The flexibility of the suit is zero, with just a couple of rubber arms sticking out from each side, so at any point the monster is required to perform an action, it just ends up looking ridiculous. The cast isn't much better; aside from dependable (but ageing) male lead Tod Andrews, there don't appear to be many real actors in the cast list. Most annoying of all is Linda Watkins' character. The American Watkins speaks with a truly grating Cockney accent all of the time, then later on turns out to have supposedly come from Australia! It beggars belief, it really does. Just another whacked-out element to an already incredible movie. An immortal delight for bad-film buffs everywhere.