Garden of Love

Lots of gore in what I suppose is a fairly well done way? I don't mind that if it supports the story instead of just being there for the sake of it as here. Just kind of stupid when it's silly splatter for splatter's sake. The story itself is pretty silly really. The bones of it are ok, but it's not fleshed out. The acting is ok, but the dialogue is pretty insane at times. When a detective is relating the story of the bloody massacre at the back of everything his over the top dramatic dialogue - as opposed to the dry just the facts narration you would expect - is the best part of the movie actually because it's funny. On the whole the movie is pretty dumb and not worth the watch unless you just like watching people being ripped apart by ghosts. Like my title says If blood is all you love, then that's what you'll receive.

Olaf Ittenbach is absolutely, a master of brutal makeup FX and an artist who doesn't thrive on entertaining the whole family (children) to complete a film. Considering his budgets, Olaf performs wonders ("Beyond The Limits") not to mention write, direct and probably a thousand other tasks to get his films off the ground. Garden of Love is definitely not for the Hollywood film fan, looking for mega-stars with cute, comedic, predictable, punch-lines but rather an original and creepy ghost story with amazing and gory visual FX. If you want cute, comedy/horror or comedy/every other genre, buy/rent something else. If you need comedy/happy endings in your movies beware, you may be offended by their absence. I can only imagine what his collaboration with Buttgereit ("Nekromantik") will bring. Fantastic and refreshing work Olaf, I can't wait to see more.

Okay, ask yourself if you enjoy gore. Are you okay with weak but humorous acting? Do you like silly writing? Once again ask yourself, if you enjoy gore. You do like gore? And funny acting and writing!? Well, alright, this movie's for you!

Once again, the master of brutal gore delivers another solid piece of super violent entertainment. This go around it surrounds a girl who's being haunted by her dead family. They want revenge and the only way they can achieve it is by this young lass to help out. There's more back-story, with some mystery involved, but that's basically the plot.

The story itself surprisingly was pretty fun. There were some lulls, but nothing that'll bore you so much that you'll shut it off or skip the scene. Regardless of a slow part here and there, the story was directed well, and with the awesome violence thrown in, it turned out to be a very fun Ittenbach flick. Definitely recommendable to gorehounds and fans of the Olaf.

The cover shots on the DVD looked very good and the director Olaf Ittenbach has quite a good reputation, so we decided to check this one out. Plus, the main character, German punk rock drummer and singer Bela B., is a very charismatic person and has shown a lot of good taste in horror movies and comics before, so I was very curious about that one.

First point, Bela B. is only in it for a few scenes and has nothing to do except for staring around. OK, he's playing an undead, they stare around and usually do no real acting, but he had shown that he can actually do good acting before, it would have been more interesting to see him in a "real" leading role . So it looked to me that his name was placed on the cover merely to promote the movie.

The other actors are absolutely ridiculous. Why do they all pretend that the story is set in Britain? The landscape, the interiors, everything is so German. Why not simply set the movie in Germany? Everything would be just fine, the story would have worked as well, and we wouldn't have wet our pants every time they tried to act "british". What took away a lot of the atmosphere.

The gore scenes are only a few, most of the time the movie spins around the investigation on Verlaine's murder. That'd be OK, if it only would have been a little bit more suspenseful.

The gory scenes are all set in darkness, so you cannot really see what's going on, you hear a lot of "painful" sounds instead. The make up of the zombies despite of that is very good, haven't seen that good looking dead people so far.

Overall, this movie is boring as hell, the acting is bad, the story is lame and a chilling atmosphere does not come up. Better stay away from that one and check out Ittenbach's "Beyond The Limits". I've seen that one before "Garden Of Love" and was very impressed about the great way of storytelling, the very good professional actors and the really really good atmosphere and setting.

If you are a gore fanatic this is a must see! If you are one of those who likes to see why films have been banned then also watch this as it borders those boundaries too! I normally enjoy spooky films but this was a crossover between spooky – which would hook me straight into it, and zombie ripping gore – which I have to look through closed fingers to vaguely see what is going on…still I had to watch it as the eyes of those deceased and the way they stood out within the scary surroundings still kept Basically a girl (Rebecca) returns to the place of a massacre which she survived as a child, but having lost her memory, is none the wiser as to what has happened…all will make sense…or will it….not really sure … I loved the look of the dead people, especially their eyes, and the setting in which they are filmed (not just the house – but the background behind them when they talk to Rebecca in what looks like the light half way between heaven and hell, with creative particles of dust passing each body), but music was a bit naff I didn't really 'feel' for any of the characters which is normally the whole point of a film…so that was disappointing..no budding actors/actresses for the future in this one I am afraid If you like excessive violence then this is the one for you – if you want something 'moving' or 'spooky' don't' bother