The Garden

A Blockbuster rental, I chose it mainly because of the seasoned character actors in it.

It was basically as I expected and the actors definitely made the movie better than the ancient story line would allow.

A 'very special' boy named Sam (Adam Taylor Gordon) is struggling with his parents divorce due to his father's alcoholism and other issues not apparent. This pushes Sam to self mutilate, but it seemed that there was more to Sam's self mutilation than just the divorce.

Sam's father David (Brian Wimmer) takes Sam traveling during his summer with the boy and they have a car accident caused by Sam's hallucinations, seemingly brought about by the will of Ben (Lance Henrikson) close to Ben's remote country home. Ben nurses them both back to health, but David is taken in by Ben's logical approach to life's problems and agrees to stay with Ben as a handy man until they can afford to leave. Sam and Ben never hit it off as Sam detects something odd in Ben's outlook on life and the continued hallucinations make life with Ben uncomfortable.

As the weak father turns to self indulgence with the urging of Ben, Sam gains strength from the other key mother figures to forgive and protect his father from whatever Ben has planned for them.

The plot is very simple. The struggle of good and evil people constantly battle within themselves and how blind faith can simplify life's decisions when people are guided through life's choices by logical (but evil) arguments they are ill equipped to refute.

If you don't have a very good background in Christianity/Judaism you will not understand the high degree of symbolism, and the movie will seem very heavily edited. I can see it being a cultural classic for the evangelical crowd.

Beside good photography, the only other good thing about this movie was the skillful performance by veteran Lance Henriksen, (as old man Ben). Unfortunately, painfully, the other main characters seemed to have absolutely no sense of timing. This I attribute to directing/editing deficiencies. So many of the scenes are drawn out like taffy. Even parallel scenes belabor alternating imagery, least the audience miss the meaning of the juxtaposition I guess? Once the story got going I was optimistic that a provocative pay off was in store. Alas, it ended the way so many movies do, offering nothing more than borrowed meaning, delivering no message or perspective of their own.

The boy Sam (Adam Taylor Gordon) is tormented by dreadful visions and nightmares and self-inflicts injures to his body. After a period in the hospital, Dr. Cairns (Claudia Christian) tells Sam's father David (Brian Wimmer) that the boy is affected by the divorce of his parents and a period together with him will make good to Sam.

David travels with Sam in his truck but Sam sees a spirit on the road and pulls the steering wheel of his father, provoking a car accident. Out of the blue, the farmer Ben Zachary (Lance Henriksen) rescues them and offers a job to David in his farm. He accepts the offer and enrolls Sam at the local school.

Sam has Bible classes with Miss Grace Chapman (Sean Young) and sooner he leans that Mr. Zachary is the devil and the place is the Garden of Eden. Further, Zachary has an evil plan for David.

"The Garden" is an almost good B-movie. Lance Henriksen is great in the role of an evil being, the cast has good performances and the atmosphere is sinister. Unfortunately the story is flawed and messy, with a disappointing conclusion. The motive why Zachary has chosen Sam and his father to accomplish his goal is not clear. And why David and his wife did not talk about Dr. Cairns, if she had sent the doctor to the farm to bring Sam back. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Jardim do Mal" ("Garden of the Evil")

First and foremost, it's a VERY bad idea to schedule a mainly story-driven and atmospheric horror movie like "The Garden" at 3am during a Film Festival and after exhilarating movies like "The Hills Have Eyes"-remake or "Neighborhood Watch"! The subject matter "The Garden" brings forward is interesting, but too abstract and definitely not compelling (let alone exciting) enough to keep you on the edge of your seat. A divorced father and his psychologically troubled son are involved in a car accident and recover at the house of a mysterious old man (Lance Henriksen in his umpteenth inferior horror role). The old guy's garden turns out to be the genuine Paradise of Eden; the place where our whole existence began according to the Holy Bible. Through the re-occurring nightmares of young Sam, the apocalypse can be inflicted in this exact same garden (don't ask me how as I somehow must have missed that part) and maybe that even is what the old man desires to achieve! Don Michael Paul's second film as a director starts out surprisingly stylish with elegant camera-work and a patient drawing of characters and settings. The first murder-sequence also comes at the exact right timing and it's quite bloody, especially considering the tone of the film so far. For reasons I fail to comprehend, "The Garden" then turns into a confusing and painfully dull mess that eventually reverts to annoying clichés and predictable plot twists. The only elements left to enjoy near the end are the creepy music and young Adam Taylor Gordon's impressive acting performance which easily surpasses the quality of his lines.

In my opinion, this film was innovative and compelling yet at the same time it slightly lacked the ability to grip me as a spectator. Mind you, I watched the entire film and thought it was a good concept. The metaphor of the fathers drink addiction and his temptation for the devils urges was very well done. Adam Taylor Gordans superb acting performance was very well needed in this film. The ending was perhaps a little confusing, but, who knows, perhaps it was the best ending possible.

Storyline - 8/10, acting - 8/10, Cinematography - 8/10

I rate this film overall 8/10.

I recommend this film to anybody who's a fan of the genre, even though the genre escapes me right now. Try not to get confused by the plot like I slightly did.