This science fiction/horror film doesn't even rate a high mark on a camp scale. It is truly one of the most boring attempts to give some unintentional laughs with acting that isn't even funny bad, just simply bad. If you thought Bobby Van was over the top singing and dancing in strange Llamasary clothing in "Lost Horizon", see him here as he faces a tree monster which only comes out in the dark so the photographers don't have to worry about the audience really not being scared. How can you be scared when you can't see it? At least the producers of "From Hell it Came" (with an ancient curse turning a murdered Amazonian prince into a tree with a skeleton dagger stuck in what used to be a human heart) allowed the creature to do its evil during the day, and that one is a 10 on the camp scale, even if a 2-3 on a film rating scale.
Mamie Van Doren doesn't so much act badly as pretty much non-act, never even managing to crack a smile as a nurse with nil a personality. The premise isn't bad, in fact, it's rather intelligent, but for very little which comes out of it, that drops the rating way, way down. It appears that explorers of Antarctica have found frozen cactus under the Southern ice and decide to bring them back along with some poor penguins which either get eaten or dissolved by these tree monsters that ooze acidic liquid off their bark. A poor dog, barking at the bark (or the crawling little spider like critter that looks like something the tree poop'd, gets turned into tree chow, while brave men scream like little girls when they see whatever is approaching them approach. This has a handsome likable hero in Anthony Eisley who has absolutely a zero chemistry quotient with Ms. Van Doren. So if you would like something to put you right to sleep, watch this one. After 30 minutes of some interesting science fiction documentary of what supposedly lives under the cape of the South Pole, there's still another 20 minutes until a full visual of these darkly lit acidic shrubberies.
Mamie Van Doren doesn't so much act badly as pretty much non-act, never even managing to crack a smile as a nurse with nil a personality. The premise isn't bad, in fact, it's rather intelligent, but for very little which comes out of it, that drops the rating way, way down. It appears that explorers of Antarctica have found frozen cactus under the Southern ice and decide to bring them back along with some poor penguins which either get eaten or dissolved by these tree monsters that ooze acidic liquid off their bark. A poor dog, barking at the bark (or the crawling little spider like critter that looks like something the tree poop'd, gets turned into tree chow, while brave men scream like little girls when they see whatever is approaching them approach. This has a handsome likable hero in Anthony Eisley who has absolutely a zero chemistry quotient with Ms. Van Doren. So if you would like something to put you right to sleep, watch this one. After 30 minutes of some interesting science fiction documentary of what supposedly lives under the cape of the South Pole, there's still another 20 minutes until a full visual of these darkly lit acidic shrubberies.