It’s Tabonga. Walk for your lives!
One of the dumbest monsters I’ve ever seen is in “From Hell it Came”. A prince, Kimo (Greg Palmer) on a Polynesian island is murdered in a tribal ritual by an unscrupulous witch doctor, Tano (Robert Swan) . The prince's wife Korey (Suzanne Ridgway) is having an affair with the witch doctor and is part of the plot. Before he is killed Kimo curses the people that are killing him. Fine. A tree starts growing where the prince was buried. The tree has what looks like a face and a heart beat. (It’s the curse.)
Three Americans are on the island. Dr. William Arnold (Tod Andrews), Dr. Terry Mason (Tina Carver) and Professor Clark (John McNamara). They are trying to treat the native population and rid them of a plague caused by radiation due to fallout. The witch doctor is not happy they are meddling in his business and treating his patients.
The doctors find the growing tree. For some reason they dig up and examine it. The tree has a knife where a human heart would be and is bleeding what looks like green blood. The monster starts to die. The doctors give it a new serum via an intravenous tube. I’m not sure how you find a vein in a tree. Anyway, Ta… Da… The tree comes back to life and starts killing people. Right.
Linda Watkins is hysterical as Mrs. Mae Kilgore. Although I’m not real sure why her character is in the movie. It doesn’t seem to serve any purpose other than comic relief.
The problem with this half man half tree monster is that it’s got no knees so all it can do is basically waddle along. In order for it to kill people it has to sneak up on them when they’re not looking. The dialogue is bad, the acting is awful, the plot is disjointed, and the monster is stupid looking. Yes, it’s a dumb movie. And it’s great. I loved it.
The official trailer calls the creature Baranga; however, in the movie its name is Tabonga.
Professional wrestler turned stuntman/actor Chester Hayes played the Tabanga monster. There have been reports that Stan Lee got the idea for Groot from this movie.