BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!

Subject: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 11:21 PM

The deciding votes are in. It has to be "From Hell It Came" (1957). This was a movie about a walking tree stump that went around killing people on a Pacific island. Has to be seen to be believed. It walks so slowly that the only way it could possibly catch someone is if they fainted (which several women do), or ran right into it while trying to get away (which also happens). Yes, indeed. You could get away from this puppy by taking a moderately brisk walk. It also has an appearance that is unintentionally very, very funny. Even Japanese monster movies about giant mutant chickens with electric bolts coming from their heads can't provoke a bigger laugh than the "Tabanga".

Tabanga and latest victim

Note how the girl is coveniently docile, allowing herself to be carried off to her doom, dropped in a pool of quicksand!

The Tabanga cannot even bend over...it's too stiff. You could escape it by lying prone on the ground and rolling away, I expect. Strangely, though, no one thinks to do that.

At any rate, this movie stinks. It's terrible. It's beyond terrible. It's incredible that anyone could make a movie this bad. Shatner could not make a film this bad. Not if he was paid to. It's incomprehensibly, catastrophically dreadful. It is THE worse monster flick of all time.

Quite an accomplishment.

Read the whole grisly tale of the Tabanga here...if you dare:

From Hell It Came!

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 11:30 PM

Darned link doesn't work. Okay, go to Google, type in "From Hell It Came", and look for "Images". You will find it. Dumbest monster ever to stalk the celluloid.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 11:34 PM

from the article: "In perhaps the film's comic highlight, we now cut to a meadow. Here, for the first time we see the Tabanga lumber around. (Sorry, I couldn't help myself. Hey, maybe he's board! OK, I'll stop that now. But, hey, really, that Tabanga's a superior monster, isn't he? What? How can you tell? Why, because he's out standing in his field! Out-standing in his field! That's all for me. Good night, ladies and gentlemen!)"

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: GUEST,AR282
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 11:46 PM

Was William Castle making movies in the 50s? Those were so BAD that they made bad an art form.

There was "The Tingler" with Vincent Price. It was about Price being this doctor who discovers a creature that lives in our spines and manifests during moments of extreme fright but shrivel at the sound of screams. He manages to isolate one of these creatures from the spine of a deaf-mute woman who was scared to death by her conniving hubby but unable to scream--yeah, I know, I know. Price calls the creature a Tingler. The most memorable line comes from Price's assistant after they discover the Tingler in the woman's spine: "We haven't proven it's real so we can't give it a Latin name." Gee, how 'bout Ricardo?

The other movie I remember was "13 Ghosts" with Martin Milner of Adam-12 fame. You were given a pair of 3-B specs and every time the ghosts would appear, these huge block letters would fade in reading, "PUT ON VIEWER." How's that for atmosphere? And the ghosts would do their dance or their act in a really super-cheesy 3D effect to even cheesier music. Then, when the ghosts were done with their gig, the words would fade in: "REMOVE VIEWER." It was horrible but hilarious.

There is one 50s movie that really sucked shit through a straw called "U.F.O." I think. Appalling, terrible, BAD! Not a horror movie other than to say horribly amateur. Cigarstore Indians couldn't be as wooden as the actors in this floundering turd of a flick. This is one of those movies where you don't wonder how they finished it so much as why they even bothered. God, it was bad! Anyway, skip it if you can--it's terribly boring in it's sheer unintended badness. Not Zappa's cheepnis, which has value, but sheerness badness which has none.

But if you ever watched Mystery Science Theater 3000, they featured some really awful, crappy movies!

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: jaze
Date: 12 Jan 06 - 11:51 PM

Mark of the Devil--from the 70's

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: GUEST,Mort
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 12:02 AM

"Norgu warns that the Tabanga will soon free itself from the ground. Clark scoffs at the patently ridiculous notion that this half-buried radioactive Tree-monster with a human heartbeat growing from Kimo's grave is just going to heave up and start walking around. Where do these silly natives get their ideas, anyway?

Norgu pleads for them to destroy the Tabanga while they still can. However, if scientists ever acted like that, then about 40% of all sci-fi movies would cease to exist. Instead, needless to say, they decide that this thing must be studied for the good of Science. However, being a woman, Terry does mention an intuitive "eerie feeling" about the whole (weird radioactive Tree-monster with a human heartbeat) thing."

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: GUEST,AR282
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 12:11 AM

Didn't they like shoot the knife with a bullet and make it plunge in so deep it killed the tree guy? If deeper penetration was what was called for, why didn't they just shoot the thing then instead of shooting the knife?? Then again, maybe its bark was worse than its bite. Hahaha hohoho! Okay, that was terrible.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: GUEST,Mort
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 12:21 AM

How does one get to the root of the problem of how to make a homicidal tree leave...or at least go into hibernation for the winter?

Yes, they shot the knife and drove it farther in. This was conveniently arranged by the Tabanga dropping Terry (the heroine) on the ground first, so they could get a clear shot at him, and standing right in front of the quicksand pool, so he could fall in. Although he was impervious to bullets, he was apparently vulnerable to a bullet pushing the knife in farther! Amazing. Uncanny. Dumb!!!

Mortally wounded, he fell into the quicksand and sank. End of movie. Girl is reunited with guy. Big musical flourish. HEAD FOR THE GODDAMN EXIT NOW and put a bag over your head in case you might be seen coming out by someone who knows you and realizes you just paid good money for the world's worst horror movie.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: GUEST,Mort
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 12:27 AM

Dynamite dialogue from the movie "From Hell It Came":

'50s White Guy Arnold is annoyed that chickadee Terry keeps refusing to marry him:

Arnold, disbelievingly: "She considers marriage some kind of prison!"

Clark: "What do you expect from a pretty girl a few years out of med college? [There's a good line.] She wants excitement, adventure. She thinks that routine is a middle age thing."

Arnold: "Yes, sometimes I could kick her beautiful…teeth in. Here I offer her the Earth, the Moon, the Stars…"

Clark: "…and she prefers test tubes and a tiny Pacific atoll. Give it up! Find somebody else!"

Arnold, whose name is Constancy: "I've tried, dozens of times."

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Naemanson
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 04:16 PM

According to the IMDB this movie (From Hell It Came) inspired one of the most infamous movie reviews of all time: "And to hell it can go!"

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 05:07 PM

LOL! Perfect.

The producers of From Hell It Came felt that it would increase the (ahem*) realism of the Tabanga (the walking tree stump) if it had some moving facial parts. They arranged to have its mouth open and shut as it walked around, linking up a Rube Goldberg device that would open and shut the mouth in rythm with the creature's plodding gait as it pursued its hapless victims at the speed of a slightly worried garden slug.

The effect was anything but realistic. I wonder if anyone who saw the movie actually found it scary. I'm betting a few did. A very few. Such people would be interesting to interview, just to get their special slant on the film.

You also get to see "Native" women do a bogus island dance...the world's most bargain basement choreography ever.

I'm tellin' you, the guys who made this film had nerve.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: jaze
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 05:27 PM

Mark of The Devil was so bad, they gave you a barf bag as you entered the theatre. No kidding.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Wesley S
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 05:28 PM

Y'know the Mummy was any speed demon either. It was as slow as my computer. I'm guessing that all of it's victims were frozen with terror. That's why they were caught.

And of couse - women always have the incredable bad luck to "twist their ankle" and fall before slow moving monsters. That's why I always call women in horror movies "ankle twisters". Or maybe it's the 6 inch spike heels that they always seem to insist on wearing in the desert or on tropical islands.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 05:53 PM

Didn't Tabanga and some of his (its?) cousins have bit parts in The Wizard of Oz?

Actually, I heard that they wanted bigger parts, but the studio said, "No." So to protest, they formed a splinter group. . . .

Don Firth

P. S. Of course, I might be barking up the wrong tree—[SLAP!]   Ouch!!

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 06:08 PM

That's knot true! Knot a word of it! (Har! Har!)

What wood they have to pay for those special effects?

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 07:03 PM

Please - the worst of all time is Ed Wood's Plan 9 - the holder of more golden turkeys than any other film ever, coincidentally represented outside the USA by a client of mine!

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 07:45 PM

You guys just don't know how to leaf well enough alone.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 07:53 PM

Tabanga and his cousins weren't too happy when the Screen Actors' Guild didn't intecede for them, so they started their own branch. But they never did get to the root of the—[POW!] Dammit! Quit that!!

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 07:58 PM

They were a bunch of saps, and not only that, they were accused of graft.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 08:25 PM

Yes, but at least they made a stand. (!)

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Once Famous
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 08:48 PM

Richard Bridge has got this right.

Plan 9 From Outer Space is infamously regarded as the worst of any genre movie of all time. Bela Lugosi's worst heroin moments on film.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: GUEST,AR282
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 10:01 PM

>>Actually, I heard that they wanted bigger parts, but the studio said, "No." . . . .<<

They said, "You guys already got the biggest wood!"

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 10:27 PM

They were cherry-picking the choicest parts, eh? How would "they" know? I don't think they could see the forest for the trees.

(It's like old times, Don--some of Dad's and my pun exchanges could go on for days!)

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Severn
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 10:35 PM

You mean this was a movie for which they should have been charged for committing trees in?

Go with "Plan 9", though.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 10:52 PM

They were lost in the woods.

"T-T-Tabanga! T-T-Tabanga! Cut he down and up he come again! T-T-Tabanga! T-T-Tabanga! Grab you ax and cut he down again!"

(Native island chant)

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Jan 06 - 11:08 PM

Never seen it, never heard of it, but some great tree-tises come from it, eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: LadyJean
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 01:13 AM

I suppose I've seen "From Hell It Came". But it's still not a patch on the infamous "Robot Monster", a world class cinematic atrocity. The producer couldn't afford a robot costume, so he rented a gorilla costume, and added a space helmet for Bela Lugosi's Ro-man from outer space. He uses a jacob's ladder to contact his mothership.
Now "They Saved Hitler's Brain" is from the 60s. But it's still pretty awful, with a very young Hitler head rolling its eyes back and forth. There's a plot, but not so's you'd notice.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Skivee
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 01:54 AM

What was the film with huge murderous radioactive human-faced crabs versus seebees on D-9 Cat tractors on a tropical island?
I'm not making this up

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Severn
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 08:44 AM

Try "Attack Of The Crab Monsters" (1957) Roger Corman was responsible.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 09:52 AM

1957 appears to have been THE year for truly lousy sci-fi and horror movies. It was a cultural watershed.

The one with the tackiest title was "I Was A Teenage Werewolf", but as a movie it actually was pretty good. It had some great scary scenes and not a bad script either. Good acting by Michael Landon. The title was designed to bring hordes of teenagers to the movie, and succeeded admirably. They made a 900% profit on the film.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 09:09 PM

As I recall, Steve McQueen's The Blob (1958) and James Arness' The Thing (1951) had marginal names but were actually pretty good.

BTW--did you know that Jim Arness (6'7" in his stocking feet) is still alive? I haven't heard about him in so long I didn't realize it. His brother, Peter Graves, is still around, mostly in voice-overs and narrating biographies on A&E and Biography channels.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 09:15 PM

Oops, when the 'Cat died this morning I saved my last entry to post later (now), but I just now missed pasting the last paragraph. It says:

At the bottom of the page the Google ad has one for Rocky Horror Picture Show. A lot of people would argue that it is pretty awful, but Tim Curry is just so darned charismatic, they pulled it off. Of course, Rocky Horror came out in the 1970s, not the '50s so it's just an aside from Google.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: MarkS
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 09:19 PM

"The Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" inspired the one line we most wish should have been in the film.

"Take me to your ladder. I'll see your leader later."

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Jan 06 - 09:25 PM

Arness #1

Arness #2

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 12:54 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 12:57 PM

?

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: bill kennedy
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 01:17 PM

From Hell it Came played pretty regulary on tv in the 60s, particularly in the Cleveland area on a friday night horror program hosted by Ghoulardi, Ernie Anderson, who went on to become the voice of ABC and much other voice over work in Hollywood. He was hilarious, and often would get in some costume or other with rear projection of the film and get into the action, usually amusing, but for 'From Hell it Came' he outdid himself. He is in the tree costume, with his face in the middle of it, goatee, one lens sun glasses, etc. and is moving slowly with the film on behind him, when you hear a little dog start to growl and yap, and Ghoulardi/Tabanga starts panicking, "No, get way, you studip dog, no, NO NO NO, oh BAD DOG!" cut to commercial!

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 01:22 PM

LOL! Lovely. Anyone remember "Count Floyd" on SCTV, doing the vampire thing?

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: GUEST,AR282
Date: 16 Jan 06 - 06:22 PM

Yeah, I loved Count Floyd.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: Skipjack K8
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 11:46 AM

Hear, Hear, LadyJean, Robot Monster is the daddy. The merciless padding shots of a gorilla with a crash helmet on wandering along a hillside path in one direction, and then an equally long shot of the poor dear coming the other way. Brilliant.

Subject: RE: BS: Worst 50's Horror Film of them ALL!
From: GUEST,Carswell
Date: 17 Jan 06 - 05:35 PM

Too bad they did not do a follow-up: "Robot Monster vs The Tabanga!" That would have been quite a confrontation.