ONE HORROR FILM A DAY! "From Hell It Came"

New Perky & Slick is up. It suggests that "open carry" laws might be a less-than-exemplary idea, so you know the NRA will deliver a calm rebuttal with the politest of restraint. People who pledge as little as $1 a month get to read it now, while the poor and downtrodden must wait until Thursday. Be a cool kid- pledge today!

So while all of you were watching the season premiere of "The Walking Dead"- a show I don't follow, because the first four episodes were shite, shite, SHITE- I was sticking to my ONE HORROR FILM A DAY! thang and watched From Hell It Came. ...NOT From Hell, the Johnny Depp vehicle about Jack The Ripper. This is the better movie.

The setting: a remote Pacific atoll inhabited by "tribespeople" in tiki-patterned skirts and headdresses festooned in popcorn and paper-mache. They murder one of their own for daring to cavort with a bunch of hard-drinking scientists on the island, who are conceivably there to stop a tropical strain of the Black Death, but more likely there because 'Murica's been testing nuclear bombs in the same sea. The sacrificed tribesman swears he'll avenge himself from Hell, and he does- but as the Tabonga, a homicidal tree monster. The pretty but morbid Dr. Terry Mason uproots the tree and- with an IV drip, administerizations to "its adrenal gland", and no one nearby helpfully screaming IT'S A FUCKING TREE, YOU IDIOT- gets the Tabonga walking again. In full daylight, no less- the From Hell It Came crew is DAMN proud of that costume. "How do you know it was the Tabonga?" the tribal chief asks of one girl mid-flight. Murderously lumbering (pardon the pun) around the island and killing indiscriminately- even with its branch-arms locked at the elbows- the Tabonga finally meets his end when the scientists grab their guns and yes, yes, I know: it's a tree. We all yelled that fact at the screen several dozens of times. I won't mince words: you must see this.

Of note... "of note"? EVERYTHING in this film is "of note"! Where to begin? How about the dialogue? "Can trees grow in coffins"? And how about "Why do you have to be a doctor first and a woman second?" (I proposed to Dee with that line.) And we mustn't forget the character of Ms. "KILL-GORE", who is a dead ringer for the lead actress (give or take 10 years) and wakes up from a trauma with literally no idea of what her accent is supposed to be- it's like Siiri cycling through accents as you fly over time zones. Oh- and if you're itching to delve into the colossal library of 50's horror movies and you have yet to pop your "Don't shoot; you'll hit the girl" cherry, do not start here! 5/5 scientists incredulously theorizing around the Tabonga's grave, to the tune of their Geiger counter pounding faster than the heart of a rabbit on a treadmill.