Okay, it's Monday, the country is reeling from a financial crisis whose depths we have yet to fathom, and I'm not feeling so great myself due to a pastrami sandwich from Katz's Deli that's lying in my stomach like a rock. So of course our thoughts turn to a crappy 50s B-horror flick featuring a vengeful ghost inhabiting a large vegetable.

But first -- STEVE'S MOVIE REVIEWS™!!!

Appaloosa -- A terrific old fashioned western, and Jeremy Irons is one of the great slimy villains ever. Renee Zellwegger is starting to look like Chip or Dale if they fell asleep at a tanning salon, however.

The Duchess -- The Princess Diana Story with cooler clothes. But Keira Knightly is turning into the Michael McDonald of actresses -- her jaw does all the work.

But I digress. In any case, we refer, of course, to the 1957 classic From Hell It Came, which we at Casa Simels have long referred to as the Citizen Kane of Ambulatory Killer Tree Movies.

The plot:

A South Seas island prince is wrongly convicted of murder and executed with a knife driven into his heart. He is buried in a hollow tree trunk and forgotten until nuclear radiation reanimates him in the form of the Tobonga, a scowling walking stump. The monster kills several people, including his own murderer (a witch doctor, whom the Tobonga pushes down a hill so that he's impaled on his own crown of shark teeth). The creature is finally killed when a crack marksman shoots the knife (which still protrudes from the monster's chest) through its heart.

Here's a clip that gives you an idea of the level of mishegass we're talking about.

Three points need reiterating here. First, you will note that The Tobonga looks pretty much exactly like the talking apple trees in The Wizard of Oz. Second, like you (I presume), I was completely surprised to learn that trees have hearts. Seriously, who knew?

And third: In the climactic scene, as the Tobonga is being chased around the island by the various good guys and their saronged enablers, it eludes its pursuers briefly by...hiding behind a tree.

From Hell It Came: You can order it -- and many other splendid things -- here.

You're welcome.