Garden of Love

I have had the pleasure of seeing this film at a horror festival in Edinburgh. Garden of Love does not have a serious bone in its sick low-budget body. There is lots and lots of blood and gore, starting with the opening credits. The plot is extremely silly like everything else in this film. In fact you might say this film is a pastiche of gory films. At first this film seemed really bad, but it was so entertaining that the director must have been doing something right. Garden of Love definitely needs to be enjoyed in company (with like-minded people!).

A lot of people were laughing at the quality of the acting, but to be so funny throughout the film it had to be deliberately bad - SURELY?. The character playing Munster was my definite favourite and I would see the film just for his extremely camp performance. I am not sure that many actors could have made the awful lines quite so funny.

You may have gathered that Garden of Love won't be everyone's cup of tea but if you have a soft spot for bad taste gory films then see it, because it's wonderfully awful.

So, I ignored my better sense and watched this disaster of a film. It's not funny, and even the gore is ridiculous and shot so poorly you can't even enjoy that aspect.

The acting is funny, it's horrific and not in a good way. I used to think freddy got fingered was the worst movie ever made - then I watched this. If I had't been on a plane with nothing better to do I would have stopped watching after the first 5 minutes. But I watched it to the end, and no it doesn't get any better.

The story is stupid, the direction is pathetic, there are 6 year olds that act better than any of the "actors" in this movie, and the script is literally so dumb I was wondering if there is a country somewhere where people actually talk like the actors in this film.

It's bad - really bad - like so bad I would rather have been cleaning toilets than watching this movie. Ignore the good reviews, it's crap - I only gave it 2 stars for the "plot twist" at the end and even that was cliché.

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.

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.

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