Garden of the Dead

For about 2 years of my life this was easily the worst movie i had ever seen. I was always a fan of cheap, bad horror movies (frankenstein island, swamp of the lost monster) but this one took the cake. the dim lighting, if there was any lighting at all, overacting and ridiculous concept were enough for me to do something i have never done before, i returned this movie to the video store the very same day immediately after i watched it. i did this to save my family from seeing it and having the same horrible time as i have. ... Fast forward about 2 years and me and a bunch of friends are stuck with nothing to do on a new year's year in 1998. after hearing how bad it was my friends decided to watch it and i was forced to do so as well. it was perhaps the funniest thing i had ever seen on film, there were too many laughs to mention here so i will just say this. This movie has gone from the worst i have ever seen, to being a part of my DVD collection. (I had to buy it it was $2.50 Brand New)Great Film For Those Who Have Nothing Better To Do.

Looking round for Horror titles at my local DVD store,I stumbled on what appeared to be a obscure flick. Taking a gamble and putting the rare film on eBay,I was surprised to find it selling right away, which led to me deciding that before I send it off,I should take a look at the garden.

View on the film:

Planted for a hour (wise move) and filmed in 10 days, director John Hayes & cinematographer Paul Hipp pull up a deep-fried Drive-In atmosphere of shoddy zombie make up and poorly lit "daylight" scenes. Breathing in the zombies by making a chain gang a bit too keen to have a sniff of toxic formaldehyde fumes, the screenplay by Jack Matcha and Daniel Cady bring out a slight charm that slots into the cheap Drive-In mood,via the cops stumbling over themselves to plant the zombies back into the garden of the dead.

I saw this film back when local authorities decided it was too sick for a "GP" rating, and clung to the old "M" (Mature Audience) rating, along with its double-feature at that time, "Grave of the Vampire." It hit my hometown of Little Rock with a major splash, complete with ghouls wandering the theatre lobby and plenty of local promo. Had to sneak in to see it. The movie is about prisoners held in some godforsaken backwoods labor camp who huff the fumes of formaldehyde all night to 'get off.' Suffice it to say, they don't stay dead after that (they seem to meet with unfortunate accidents alot). Lots of wandering dead guys in fog, dark shots with creepy underlit green faces. Low budget but great B-movie horror thrills.

A group of convicts in a corruptly administered work camp get a cheap high by huffing from a tin drum of formaldehyde. They are later killed during an escape attempt, only to rise from their graves and set about doing all the terrible things we've come to expect of zombies.

This is a fairly starch example of skinflint 70s horror, although it does deserve the small-beans honor of being, most likely, the first film to represent zombies as cognitive and dexterous in speech and movement(as opposed to the fish-eyed, lumbering customary type). It would stand to reason that these enhanced capacities should result in more formidable and frightening zombies...unfortunately, they come off as awkward and occasionally laughable.

A slight film of no real importance, GARDEN OF THE DEAD is, at best, sufficient fodder for independent TV station "Tweaking Til Dawn" type shows. Meh.

4/10

This is a fun "movie" - I usually don't consider anything below an hour in length as a movie, but for this I'll make an exception. Several things make "Garden" worthy as a quick late-nite rental. First, the movie gets into the zombie action as soon as possible, establishing the situation quickly as though it can't wait for the dead to rise and attack. "Garden of the Dead" is also creepy. Most of the movie takes place at night, and the zombies stepping through the eerie fog, as well as the surrounded-by-zombies, cut-off-from-help situation of the people in the prison all add up to a healthy feeling of fright. My favorite scene was the woman trapped in the motorhome while the horde of zombies stands motionless around the front windows, just staring at her.

"Garden" is incredibly low budget. The prison appears to have all the soundness of construction of a house of cards. Most of the effects consist of fog and the zombies' green, though grotesque-looking, makeup. The zombies also try to demonstrate some sort of superhuman abilities by jumping out of the darkness at top speeds and attacking people before disappearing back into the night. An entertaining flic for B-horror fans. 7/10