I really don't know how anyone involved with this movie worked on it with a straight face. Believe it or not, it actually has credits in the beginning, suggesting that real human beings were behind its making. Why would anyone want their name attached to this? I used to think that pretty much all old movies were good, even the campy ones, but this one is just so bad it has nothing to hide. The story starts with a guy named Kimo getting executed. He's part of a tribe that lives on a tropical island, but the people there are dying from bubonic plague, and Kimo has been accused of giving people intentionally harmful medicine. Among the "plague" victims is Kimo's father, but in reality, Maranka (the chief) is the real cause of his death. Kimo is killed by being stabbed through the heart with a ceremonial dagger, and his corpse is buried inside a tree. Meanwhile, an american researcher named Terry (Tina Carver) comes to the island to help cure the plague that has been affecting the natives. She meets Dr. Arnold (Tod Andrews) and some of his associates. When Terry and Arnold go outside together one day, they find Kimo's burial site, which has been somehow covered by a tree stump. One of the islanders says this is indicative of a type of monster called a Tabanga, which is a being resembling a tree that comes back from the dead in order to wreak havoc and get revenge on people. After cutting its roots and bringing it back to the lab, Terry and the others try to experiment on it, but the next morning, it's gone. Shortly after, Korey (Suzanne Ridgeway), Kimo's former wife, tries to kill another island woman named Naomi with a knife because she is married to Maranka. The Tabanga shows up, grabs Korey, and throws her into some quicksand, where she drowns. It then seeks out chief Maranka and kills him just by nudging against him. The natives now realize that the monster is actually a resurrected Kimo, and try to bait him into a pit they dug in order to trap him. This succeeds, and the natives set Kimo on fire. However, he doesn't die, and after killing some more islanders, he manages to make his way to the lab and capture Terry. The Tabanga intends to throw her in quicksand, so the other scientists set off in pursuit and manage to kill the Tabanga by shooting the knife still lodged in its heart. This pushes it all the way through, killing the tree stump. This movie is just totally ridiculous. It's bad enough that the monster in the film is literally a walking piece of a tree, but it goes one step further and has utterly terrible acting. For the most part, I didn't think it was horrible, but the people involved just didn't sound very interested in the plot they were in, but how could you blame them? The part where Naomi and Korey fight each other is funny because of how horribly their movements are choreographed. I thought it was hilarious how the creature eventually grabs Korey and dumps her in the quicksand with absolutely no emotion. The costume is terrible, and it just makes the experience more entertaining. Overall, I should have been angry at this movie for being so bad, but it's so inept it actually ends up being a masterpiece. It's so fundamentally broken on every level that it becomes a prime example of how not to make a movie. That doesn't affect the score I gave it though. It's really bad. It's also worth noting that the monster costume was made by Paul Blaisdell, who also made the costume for the alien in The Terror From Beyond Space, which was another film with awful special effects.
Review of From Hell It Came
