El jardinero maldito

I FINALLY got to see this movie. I was looking forward to it but was thoroughly disappointed. The plot, if any was there, was lame and tired at best. The acting was below sub-par (for the corpse). The directing was too choppy with jagged scene shifts and the lighting and audio need help. I would not recommend this double-bogey movie to anyone.

When someone starts using the business end of a pair of hedge clippers on the more snobbish patrons of a posh country club, rumors fly the slice-n'-dice handiwork is the signature of The Greenskeeper, a serial killer long thought dead from an explosion years ago. Allen, whose mother owns the country club, begins having nightmare visions where he is haunted by The Greenskeeper. Allen begins to suspect he may have a connection to The Greenskeeper he never dared imagine. Meanwhile, the beautiful jet setters of the club decide to sneak in after hours for some skinny-dipping, partying, and sex-on-the-green. Unfortunately for the teens, The Greenskeeper decides to crash the party, and armed with golf equipment and landscaping tools, begins picking off Izods one by one. Joining forces with his new love interest Elena, Allen races to the club to try to save his friends. He and Elena must play a deadly game of cat and mouse to survive, because when you have a tee time with The Greenskeeper, it's par for the corpse!

Gore should be the main attraction in a low budget slasher film. Of course, it isn't. There was way too much focus on a lame plot than the potentially cool killings. They did manage to have a slit throat, a couple be-headings, an anal insertion golf cleaner, and a hedger through the stomach. The gore was pretty dry and incredibly lazily done. With every potential murder weapon on a golf course they could have done a lot better.

The acting actually wasn't too bad to begin with. It was supposed to be super cheesy, but went overboard towards the end with the lazy/awful lines. Some of the comedy was actually pretty funny and delivered how it was meant to be delivered. Allelon Ruggiero really wasn't too bad as the loser guy. The yuppies were all played obnoxiously well and made me laugh a few times. This truthfully wasn't the bad part of the movie.

It had the b-movie feel, but there really weren't too many mistakes. There were a few bad shots here and there, but nothing that ruined the movie. The lighting and audio was always properly done(sort of.) The fake lightning was completely terrible and happened every time the killer was on the courses. That was totally idiotic. The other bad technical aspect was the music...They felt it was necessary to constantly have cheesy mystery or pop music playing throughout the movie. It really didn't have to be this bad!

Final Thoughts: This totally could have been a really fun movie with the exact same cast and crew members and script even. Cheesy music, bad (and dry)gore, lame effects, and too much plot did this movie in. I really wanted to enjoy it, but it just didn't deliver the goods. Too bad the horror movie they were watching on TV (the milkman) looked more like the movie this should have been.

I Don't know what to think about this one, first off the acting is kinda split, there are some okay actors and others are bad, but I would not call it good acting. I actually thought the directing was "good" and the script wasn't bad either, so there are some pluses! But one thing I didn't like at all was the ending I thought it was way to much like a scobby doo ending instead of a horror movie ending. This movie didn't have wonderful character development either, I really didn't care about the characters. There are some funny parts, so that helps out the movie. It is a bit gory also, nothing shockingly gory but it has its gory moments! So on a final note I'm going to give this movie a 5.5/10 MAYBE a 6 but probably a 5.5/10

What saves this film is that the tone is just right, funny and laidback and tongue in cheek. No cure for cancer, just a groovy goodtime.

The actors are all comfortable in front of the camera, especially the lead actor, who just strolls through his scenes with a been there done that attitude that is a refreshing change from the furrowed brow method that passes for acting these days.

The screenplay is funny and lean, bad dialogue is not a detriment here.

The SFX are of the pump blood from under the weapon variety, but some are very creative and funny. Their unrealistic quality adds to the film's charm.

All the bad points of this film work for it in the long run. The inane conclusion to the inane plot fits because the filmmakers knew that they were making a spoof.

The film did seem very static and some scenes meandered to pad the film out, but this is common in a low budget movie.

The trailer is misleading however. John Rocker fans will be disappointed when they find that he is only in the movie for five minutes. The filmmakers acknowledge this in the screenplay; it is part of the joke so I can call no foul on it.

Overall, a fine horror spoof of the slasher films I grew up with, with a refreshing choice for lead actor, interesting kills, and a laid back feel that makes it easy to like.

IMDb lists this as 90 minutes, but the version I saw on a British DVD (in a boxed set of individually unsellable horror films) barely got to 77 minutes. Was it cut? Since the boxed set had an 18 rating anyway (strictest in the UK apart from porn films) it's hard to know what the motivation for cutting it could be. Like censors anywhere, those in the UK can be a bit crotchety, but policies are pretty liberal nowadays and it's hard to believe that they could have found thirteen minutes' worth of cuts that needed to be made.

Well, cut or not, what was this like? The last few minutes – and especially a silly and gruesome joke about a lawn sprinkler – just start to hint at a comic inventiveness that is miserably lacking from the rest of the film. Other than that, the reviews of the various people here who "hated it" look pretty accurate to me, and they were probably seeing a longer film. British viewers, check out the box. If it says 77 minutes, I certainly can't recommend this.