BOTTOM LINE: Perhaps the zenith of 1950's schlocky monster movies. FROM HELL IT CAME is a movie everybody ought to see at least once if they hope to make their life complete. And thankfully, Warner Archive's hi-def transfer looks & sounds pretty dang good. Trust me folks, this termite-infested tale of vengeful vegetation is one motion picture you wooden wanna miss! 5 silly STARSTHE STORY: Xenophobic politics favor heavily in this sappy story of a young island prince accused of consorting with the Evil White Man (gasp!) by his tribe's twitchy witch doctor, his power-hungry second-in-command, and the prince's own two-timing wife. Railroaded through the tribal judicial system, the innocent prince is summarily staked to the ground and then staked through the heart with a ceremonial dagger, but not before swearing revenge - from beyond the grave if necessary - on those who wronged him. Once the Prince's body has been stuffed into a crude, disturbingly outhouse-shaped coffin and vertically buried in the local graveyard, the weaselly witch doctor & his backstabbing buddies congratulate each other's cruel, crafty cleverness. But soon the barren cemetery is sprouting some decidedly UN-natural new flora... in the form of an unusual-looking, vaguely man-shaped tree stump. But wait folks, this is no ordinary tree stump shaped like a man, complete with a frowny face & bad bird's nest hairdo. Oh no, it's that legendary South Seas spirit of vengeance, the terrifying tree monster: Tabonga!THOUGHTS: There's no way to say it other than that this film is just absolutely ridiculous. The script is so crappy it should have been written on toilet paper. The production design is atrocious. The blaring musical score is over-the-top obvious. The direction is stiffer than a 2x4. And the actors in this cinematic sliver are all as wooden as the titular tree terror, with the island 'natives' being especially cringe-worthy. (The men have apparently perfected a tropical palm tree Pomade, which they all slather on by the canoeful, while the women, despite being thousands of miles from the nearest cosmetics counter, sport more make-up than the members of KISS! And dig that crazy island witch doctor, the first native South Seas medicine man with a Bronx accent!) Still, there's just something about this film. I mean honestly, how can you NOT have a goofy smile plastered on your face watching a movie that prominently features a man-shaped tree aimlessly lumbering about s-l-o-w-l-y stalking pudgy guys in flowery skirts??? The creation of (criminally un-credited) legendary B-movie monster maker Paul Blaisdell, "Tabonga" is an memorable menace, indeed. Too bad he didn't branch out and star in other films. Tabonga is what Guardians of The Galaxy's beloved "Groot" would have probably looked like, had GoTG been made in the 1950's or 60's. In fact, I'm firmly convinced that the design for Groot, (who made his original appearance in November 1960's issue of Tales to Astonish, a mere three years after this film came out), was directly inspired by Tabonga. [Check the pics.] I don't think I'm going out on a limb when I say that Tabonga is what makes this movie worth watching. Everything else about this unfortunately NOT one-of-a-kind flick just stinks to high heaven, and I'll leaf it at that. FROM HELL IT CAME would make the logical first film in an oldies 'Killer Tree' triple feature home movie marathon, along with the sadly unavailable NAVY VS. THE NIGHT MONSTERS and MAN-EATER OF HYDRA, both of which feature bark far worse than their bite.THE BLU-RAY: The hi-def transfer for FROM HELL IT CAME comes to us from Warner Bros. Archives branch. The picture is mostly clean and stable, though some crush (video noise) is present throughout most of the film. The frame has been formatted to fill 16x9 TV's, but there doesn't appear to be too much of the picture that's lost so, given the eclectic nature of this flick, I don't feel it's too sacrilegious of W-B to have tampered with it to fit modern TV screens. Audio is strong & stable, the mono soundtrack clean & level. No bonus content except a so-so copy of the film's theatrical trailer, which erroneously credits the monster as "Bawanga" ? FROM HELL IT CAME is best summed up by Ed Naha, in his delightful 1975 movie monster movie reference book, Horrors From Screen to Scream, thusly: "And to hell it can go."