User reviews

Gardener is a 70s Horror Film starring Joe Dallesandro as the title character, a gardener with evil powers. More importantly, gardener who never wears a shirt with evil powers. Excited yet? The movie is very pretty, filmed in Puerto Rico. Very gorgeous shots of various flowers and our title character fill the movie. It's not very believable that Carl - The Gardener - can manipulate the flowers to drive his employers and friends crazy, and that's mostly because it isn't really explained. It just happens, and they expect us to believe it because the evidence is there. He comes, he goes, they go crazy. I want to say that this movie was made to exploit the young actor (at least young at the time), but he's never really explored. He has some exploitive scenes, like when he skinny dips and seduces various female characters, but he's really not "fleshed" out. LoL. Flesh. Our main character Ellen (played by Katherine Hepburn's niece Katharine Houghton) gets most of the screen time and she falls prey to Carl's powers of manipulation. The flowers in the house start to affect her other servants, her husband, and her best friend, who just wants to bed him. (Rita Glam, stealing every scene she's in) I obviously wanted to watch the movie for some eye candy, and I kinda' get it. Joe Dallesandro as Carl struts around the movie in nothing but a pair of tight camel skin pants. We get a butt shot and some ab shots, but nothing that I can't see on an episode of Desperate Housewives or Weeds. Still, the acting of our two main actresses, (playing the typical main character and main character's horny friend that pollutes so many other films) rises above B movie status and they take the ridiculous script so seriously that it elicits some unnecessary laughter throughout. Worth a watch for cult movie fans, and gay people, but don't expect too much. Just some flesh, flowers and HORROR!!!! heheh.

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Having left Andy Warhol's 'factory', model turned actor Joe Dallesandro appeared in this rather weird horror film in which he plays the titular gardener, Carl, who is hired by wealthy housewife Ellen Bennett (Katharine Houghton) to work his horticultural magic on her garden (oo-err!). Carl's amazing flowers seem to exert a strange influence over Ellen, who eventually begins to suspect that there is something sinister about her new employee. She investigates and discovers that Carl's previous employers have either gone crazy or died. It eventually turns out that her gardener is a tree (which might explain Dallesandro's wooden acting!).

Not in the slightest bit scary, but possessing of an eerie atmosphere, this film largely exists to exploit Dallesandro's sex appeal, the actor shirtless for the entire film, and in the buff for several scenes. The rest of the cast acquit themselves well enough, with Rita Gam stealing the show as Ellen's best friend Helena, who would like the green-fingered hunk to tend to HER herbacious borders. Not a great film, with a bit too much talk and not enough horror, its obscurity is understandable, but it's worth a go if you're looking for something a little off the beaten (garden) path.

this movie looks, sounds and plays like an industrial travelogue from the 70s. possibly as innocuous as a horror film could be. if that isn't recommendation enough, it also features joe dallesandro with a dazzling verbal prowess not seen since the warhol films (it's a little scary when he is just as zonked when out of a drug context). almost completely devoid of horror, it consists mainly of bored, rich people having stilted dialogue while they lounge about their tropical island homes. the score helps this along with swell cocktail themes running throughout, with the occasional diversion into cheesy horror. it's actually quite an enjoyable score. there is a great deal of suspense in place of horror, as you are kept on the edge of your seat wondering what the point to all this is. you needn't wonder, because there is none. the climax, while not elucidating, adds to the ridiculousness of the whole story. i mean, really adds. why does joe take jobs as a gardener just to ensure the randomly disconnected deaths of the ladies of the house? um...because he is a tree? i'm not spoiling anything here; this is detailed lovingly on the video box. if you rent horror movies to see women raped or brutalized, skip this (and skip your next 200 meals too). but if you enjoy old 70s horror films for their artifact quality, with their distinctive film stock and wide range of charms, go ahead and rent this. it will get a little boring by the end, but it's worth it.

So you are in this movie-rental place with a horror section that is just miles wide and furlongs in length, and you are, just imagine, scanning the rows for anything that catches your rather jaded (maybe from too many low-budget or low-brow horror flicks, too much mockery, or stilted dialogue, too many effects or musical stings) eye in that special way that only a truly mongoloid flick can do--and what do you see? of course, a really chintzy colored pencil and pastel picture of this tree/man graft that has women trapped (mayhaps metaphorically) in his "roots," but the really bad part is the complete physiological inaccuracy of the picture (witness, in your mind's eye, the nipples of this bare-chested "evil" tree/man placed in the exact (okay, semi-exact) orthocenter of his pectoral muscles--just plain zaniness from look one!), and it has this tag on it that reads, "He does bad things to them...in the Garden!!" and what can you do or say (except fall in love with it on the spot and say "I love you," respectively associated, right there in the orchard of neon horror that is the movie rental place)--and then so imagine your heartbreak when you get home, undress it from its plastic case and discover to yourself the fact that it is completely: affectless, toneless, actionless, heartless, penniless, paceless, plotless, heartless, and, perhaps most horribly, humorless--you and your best bud cannot, for the glory that the world holds, come up with a single joke to combat the ceaseless waves of offense to your senses and sensibilities that this offers--not to mention devoid of a) evil and b)seeds of said evil...there are no effects: it features untold minutes of floral footage, which cause the actors to expire at completely surreal and random moments--with which occasional happening you can utterly sympathize...I went looking for a movie too bad to be believed, and I found it. It broke my heart. It has the power to tear yours out and lay it bleeding on the table before you, and it won't even give you a maniacal chuckle to which to expire. This is the worst movie I have ever seen with maybe the sole exception of "'Manos':The Hands of Fate." But, hey, you're the one in the horror section--you roll the dice.

Katharine Houghton ("Guess Who's Coming to Dinner") stars as Ellen Bennett, a well-to-do American living in Costa Rica. She makes a big mistake when she hires the hunky but mysterious "Carl" (Joe Dallesandro, "Flesh for Frankenstein") as her gardener. The man has a "green thumb", to put it mildly, and soon the Bennett estate is overflowing with lush vegetation. However, Ellen finally wises up and realizes that there's something really "off" about this guy.

"The Gardener", a.k.a. "Seeds of Evil", is a flat, disappointing "horror" film from writer-director James H. Kay. It was the only feature film he ever got around to making, and it's no surprise. It's pretty much a dud, albeit one that I *wanted* to enjoy more than I did. It's rather a wash as a horror film, even in uncut form (although this is partly because it's too dark to really see the nastiest bits). And the horror really only occurs towards the end, when Ellen is concerned about the behavior of her visiting niece (Cass Fry, in *her* only film credit).

Houghton is sincere and fairly appealing, although the viewer will likely get annoyed over her clueless nature. Ellens' husband John (James Congdon, "4D Man") is at least more wary of Carl than she is, but he never really does anything about it. Dallesandro is of course as boring as always, although if one is a fan, they'll appreciate how well his physical attractiveness is played up - most of the time he parades around topless, and he even has a few nude scenes. The only real standout here is Rita Gam ("Klute") as Ellens' friend Helena.

Although pleasures to be had watching this are few and far between (Kay can't even deliver a great ending), it *does* have a haunting score composed by Marc Fredericks, some fun local color (it was actually filmed in Puerto Rico), and some amusing psychedelic touches.

It's not one I'd recommend, unless your curiosity gets the better of you.

Four out of 10.

Last night I saw this film, which missed the possibilities of developing an interesting story, with endless dialogs and bad performances. But I wouldn't put the blame on Joe Dallesandro. After all he plays a tree or something like that, so he delivers his line as plant-like as possible. He is a beautiful tree to look at, though, and I believe this is what this film is all about, including his legendary derrière. Poor Katharine Houghton tries to deliver a dramatic performance in the line of a giallo fatal heroine to no avail; James Congdon as her husband is rather boring (especially with Little Joe around), and Rita Gam is simply having a good time. I lived in Puerto Rico when this film was shot, but I did not hear anything about it being made. It was fun to watch a few theater people that were my friends, playing minor roles (Esther Mari, the cook; or Orlando Rodríguez and Janet Gómez as the couple Houghton visits).

I picked this movie up in the USED section at my local Record shop and I have to say, by the cover artwork and synopsis on the back, I was excited to take it home and pop it in. The whole project is really well-done in that way. But that's about it. The film was very 70's, which for me, is a good thing. For most viewers though, this would prove to be a cheesy example of an era that might be better off forgotten. The music is pretty bad and so are the clothes. It's not stylish, its like the Brady Bunch.

There is no good gore in this movie. The acting is decent and the guy who plays "The Gardener" is semi-creepy, but the plot just fails. It's not scary in the least bit and the only good scene in the film is the very last one.

I had high hopes, I really did. I wanted to like it more, and I still do. I've watched it three times now and I still fail to see how this is a horror movie. It's more like an off-beat romantic drama with a twist. If I had to compare it to something else, I'd say a mix between "Rosemary's Baby," "Play Misty for Me," and "Alice in Wonderland" (the live one) but not as good as any of those films.

4 out of 10, kids.

SEEDS OF EVIL is one obscure film and the better for it. I love watching films that have been, for whatever reasons, forgotten or simply dismissed with time. Watching them always brings a special kind of feeling: that your watching something few people have seen. On rare occasions I "discovered" a couple of hidden gems by doing this. But most of the time there's a good reason why so many films are forgotten: they're just not good on any level.

SEEDS OF EVIL is one of those obscure films people have forgotten and though it's not a true hidden gem, it's a real find nonetheless. There's something unique about it which I've rarely seen in any film I've seen up to now: it basically creates a new genre, of the psychic connections between plants and humans and the potential for evil. It's forward thinking enough to be seen as contemporary and yet the film has a quaint charm to it which reminds me of movies of the past.

Though made in 1975, SEEDS OF EVIL is decidedly straddled between the films of sex and gore of the 1970s and the spooky, non-violent horror films made just a decade ago (like THE HAUNTING or THE INNOCENTS). The sex is provided in the form of Joe Dallesandro, who's shirtless and wearing barely there hip-huggers, or just plain naked throughout the movie. And the quaintness is mainly due to the fact that there's little violence in SOE and the soundtrack is very flowery and has that "whoo-hoo-hooo" kinda of feel to it, which is probably more suited for a horror film of the 1950s or 60s than one from the 1970s.

The direction is not bad. The camera glides around smoothly. The film is never boring even though nothing much really happens in the movie. The 1970s fashion and interiors are a sight to behold. The acting is surprisingly good for this kind of film, with Rita Gam stealing the show. The exception being Joe Dallesandro. Joe is one bad actor. So much so that the director consciously avoided having Dallesandro acting on screen for extended periods of time. Dallesandro, with his compact and sculptured body, was simply used as "special effects" for the film. And the genre (psychic attachment to plants, also explored in THE KIRLIAN WITNESS in 1978) is an interesting one and though not 100% successful here, it does bring a fresh outlook to where evil might lurk.

Anyone looking for gore or violence, or female nudity will be sorely disappointed with SOE. But for fans of obscure films, even though there's nothing earth-shattering about it, SEEDS OF EVIL is a nifty little find.

This film has 5+ names so it took me a while to find it streaming on Prime. It's a hard film to review because most of the actors are actually good? They're accomplished stage actors and you can tell. The beautiful elephant in the room is a shirtless Joe Dallesandro who slinks through various scenes like he's in a porno...but I'm blaming that on the unexperienced director since we know Little Joe can/could do more than that.

Unfortunately the story is incredibly boring. Even the lowest budget film can be a fun watch if the plot moves at a good clip but this just meanders along, making it feel interminable. It's good acting with bad writing and directing.

Face it, if you're at all interested in looking up a movie like "Seeds of Evil" in the first place, you ought to see it. IF you can find it...our video store had a Unicorn Video print, in the dustiest corner of the dustiest shelf.

The music on the soundtrack is disconcertingly cheery...some of the acting is horrendous...some isn't bad and a couple of the actors have a curious appeal. For instance, James Congdon is like a poor man's Burt Reynolds.

Not as bad as some other viewers have indicated...again, if you are interested in looking at ratings for this one, just go watch it.

My review was written in February 1981 after a screening at NY's Thalia theater.

Shot on location in Puerto Rico in 1972 under the title "The Gardener", "Seeds of Evil" is a failed indie horror film never widely distributed, and reviewed here for the record.

Uneventful story deals with Carl (Joe Dallesandro), a sinister but attractive young gardener whose wealthy His employers have a habit of suddenly dying. His current employer Ellen Bennett (Katherine Houghton) is stuck with an inattentive husband (James Congdon) and is attracted to Carl. Beautiful neighbor Helena (Rita Gam) also falls under the gardener's spell, leading ultimately to violenced and Carl's death. Writer-director Jim Kay unimpressively grafts onto this sexual attraction premise a ludicrous horror plot to which Carl's orchids and other flowers conspire to kill people. With no budget for special effects, film becomes camp in scenes of victims' terrified reaction shots to the innocent-looking (but supposedly lethal) flowers. At film's end the dying Carl turns into a human tree with makeup and design work that is laughable. Instead of being scary, film is simply pleasant, with endless scenes of the lead actresses chatting, going to a costume ball or just showing off their wardrobe.

Katherine Houghton (niece of Kate Hepburn and previously featured in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner") is a very engaging personality here, surviving the lame material by playing each scene with spirit and no condescension. Rita Gam provides humor as her arch best friend. In his first starring assignment away from the Andy Warhol factory, Joe Dallesandro merely nonacts with a disinterested monotone delivery, but helmer Jim Kay does exploit thesp's male sex symbol status well in tasteful nude shots and arresting closeups. Tech credits (other than effects work) are professsional but undistinguished.

Anyone who didn't enjoy this probably wasn't around to suffer through that era in television. Unintentional or not, this movie is an effective parody of late-60s through mid-70s 'horror'. All style, no horror. This film sticks to the conventions of pretty much every Movie of the Week and Night Gallery segment. That horrible music was in the background of every television movie of the era, whether it was a romance in Scandinavia or voodoo in New Orleans. Floor-length hostess gowns, towering wigs, boring marriages, too many cocktails, ethnic tokenism...... you name it, every trope from the era is in this film. Katharine Hepburn's niece follows in her aunt's footsteps by playing herself (try to find a Hepburn movie in which she doesn't play a madcap heiress.) Joe Dallesandro does what he does best, which is wandering around half-naked and saying as little as possible. NO ONE wears a pair of low-slung pants like Joe Dallesandro. It would have been much better if there were less horror (the special effects are dire) and more sex (which requires nothing but more Joe Dallesandro not talking.)

Warhol entourage beefcake Joe Dallessandro portrays Karl, a gardener in the employ of a wealthy but neglected housewife(Katharine Houghton, miles downstream from her earlier success in GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER). His command of the botanical arts is impressive, but his references are tough to check considering most of his previous employers have died. Suspiciously.

Houghton's garden is soon the envy of her upper-crust clique, and her reserved and perpetually bare-chested gardener becomes the object of much lustful flutter among her female friends. The household staff(native to the South American environs where this is set and filmed) are less enthusiastic about Karl's presence, and they warn their housemistress of his evil wizardry. Shrugging off this superstitious cautioning, she becomes increasingly drawn to Karl...but when people around her begin to die mysteriously, she comes to suspect a tenebrous connection to the flora cultivated by her brooding and sexually Svengali-like greenskeeper. The bizarre eventuality of this mystery is the manifestation of Karl's true nature. It seems he is...quite literally...a tree.

While THE GARDENER is a semi-creditable example of an under-the-radar horror film ethos, it's not likely to have strong appeal to a mainstream viewing integer. Sluggishly paced and lacking 'comme il faut' shocks and bloodshed, it does otherwise manage to build an obfuscous atmosphere of weblike mystique.

A mellow horror high for some, probably a harsh toke for others...5/10

This movie is for fans of obscure cinema, cinephiles, and those of us who love anything and everything Joe Dallesandro. I'm all three and happy to have seen this movie.

Ok, I saw it a while ago - but here is what I remember. I think there was a lot of drinking (not by me, though I suggest it if you watch this), a lot of plants, and something to do with Brazil. I may be mistaken, but if you rented this movie, it's not my fault. It isn't the best Funny Bad movie I ever seen (that still goes to Hobgoblins), and sure isn't scary. However, it isn't in the category of unwatchable bad. I felt when watching it, that if MST3K did it - then it would be good. However, by itself - you may just want it to end. And don't expect much from the ending (or the begining/middle for that matter)!

Oh yea, and I remember the movie being really "green", that's the best way to describe it. Maybe 'cause it's from the 70s.