Garden of the Dead

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

This film begins with a group of convicts performing manual labor at a prison facility known as Camp Hoover. Yet even though they are generally well-guarded some of these men still manage to sneak away to an area where formaldehyde is stored and while nobody is looking breathe in the fumes in order to get high. Later that night these same men decide to make a prison break but in doing so are shot and killed by the guards for their efforts. But the story doesn't end there as upon being buried they rise from their graves and become obsessed with not only killing everyone alive but also acquiring more formaldehyde in the process. Now rather than reveal any more I will just say that the zombies in this film were quite different than those presented in other movies of this type in that they could talk and used tools to kill their victims. In addition to these peculiarities they also possessed a rather strange weakness as well. In any case, although this was a rather short movie (approximate 59 minutes) with definite budgetary restraints, it wasn't terribly bad and for that reason I have rated it accordingly. Slightly below average.

1972's "Garden of the Dead" served as second feature to topliner "Grave of the Vampire," both titles directed by John Hayes (Christopher Lee's "End of the World"), and shows how the zombie subgenre was still evolving after George Romero's flesh eating ghouls arrived on the scene in 1968. Little more than a threadbare outline as a failed breakout attempt leaves all the convicts dead, only to be revived by their addiction to formaldehyde, gathering up weapons to punish the living. Joe Blasco was a dependable makeup man for such low budget outings, a pasty faced crew with dark rings around the eyes, moving swiftly to kill without warning, and occasionally growling their lines. Among the mostly no name cast is pretty Suzanne Charny, soon to be immortalized by her silent depiction of a snarling vampire in a memorable episode of KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER ("The Vampire"). Roughly ten years later, both films would see rerelease and be promptly reviewed as 'Dog of the Week' by Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert on SNEAK PREVIEWS.

The convicts at a prison work camp conspire to escape, and escape they do. But they don't make it very far, and the camp officials pump them full of lead. But soon the convicts rise from the dead to terrorize their nemeses.

This very low budget horror opus may be worth a look for the most devoted aficionados of the genre. It may not exactly be high quality stuff, but it's fairly good entertainment. Director John Hayes ("Dream No Evil", "Grave of the Vampire") gives it some solid atmosphere. This is one of those instances where the minimal funding actually works in the movies' favour. It therefore has that irresistible "late show" feeling that always appeals to this particular viewer.

The zombies here do manage to be somewhat unique. They plan, they talk (one thing that they like to say is "We will destroy the living!"), they wield weapons, and they plod around. They're also not that hard to take down. Joe Blasco, who graced a couple of horror and exploitation titles (among them Cronenbergs' "Shivers", "Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS", and "Johnny Firecloud") with his work, supplies the pretty good zombie makeup. While there is some violence throughout this thing, however, there really isn't any gore to speak of.

Dedicated cult cinema lovers are going to recognize a couple of the faces here. Corpulent John Dennis ("Conquest of the Planet of the Apes") is a prison guard, Marland Proctor ("Chrome and Hot Leather") is studly convict Paul Johnson, Jerome Guardino ("Crash!") is a gravedigger, legendary exploitation director Lee Frost ("The Defilers") is McGee, Eric Stern ("The Love Butcher"), is Coler, Virgil Frye ("Revenge of the Ninja") plays zombie leader Bradock, Phil Hoover ("Race with the Devil") is Donovan, and Carmen Filpi ("Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers") is cast as Nolan. Sexy Susan Charney supplies the eye candy as Johnsons' wife Carol.

Whether or not one derives any entertainment from this, they can hardly fail to notice how short it is: a runs a scant 59 minutes long.

Six out of 10.

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.