Garden of the Dead

Rating:
Summary: Wacky Zombies
Review: Any zombie movie I find is snatched up, and this is no exception. Its not old enough to be like "Plague of the Zombies," "I Eat Your Skin," and others where all the zombies do is manual labor, but its not quite new enough to be your Fulci zombies, either. The zombies ARE violent, but too fast and "smart" to be a classic Fulci movie. However, it is still a good movie for the Horror/Zombie movie fan.

Rating:
Summary: The Garden Hoe Horror...
Review: Every once in awhile, I purchase a movie with absolutely no prior knowledge of the film, not even reading the various reviews that may be posted here. Sometimes I find an unpolished gem, and sometimes I find a road apple...the latter being the case with Garden of the Dead (1972).

Directed by John Hayes, who's other credits include The Farmer's Other Daughter (1965), Sweet Trash (1970), All the Lovin' Kinfolk (1970), and Jailbait Babysitter (1978), Garden of the Dead is a no budget zombie movie that failed to evoke nary a scare or a chill in this viewer.

The film takes place in Camp Hoover, a prison/work camp located somewhere in Colorado, or at least that's what the crude sign sez...we see convicts rolling 55 gallon barrels onto a flatbed truck, and based on the stenciled printing on the side of the drums, they all contain formaldehyde. We quickly learn the camp produces the foul smelling stuff, and also that the camp is about to be closed down, with the prisoners and guards to be relocated to different prisons, while the warden will be let go, as, apparently, his style of running things doesn't fit in with the department of corrections idea of how things should be done. I think the thing is the warden is `old school', and the department of corrections, being the progressive institution that they are, is looking towards the future. Anyway, this figures little into the plot of the film, so I am unsure why they wasted time with this point.

Anyway, we soon get to hang with the prisoners, as they enjoy a midday break/meal. This prompts a number of prisoners to converge on the formaldehyde distiller, to which they begin huffing the vapors. No, really, they seem to be getting a high off the stuff, and this was pretty funny to watch. The prison guards don't seem to notice the men's absence, which I thought was a little strange as there's about 20 inmates in the prison camp, and about eight of them were hiding behind the shack-like structure housing the distiller. After getting their fill of the vapors, they move a tank next to the structure, which reveals a hole, one that leads to a tunnel. Seems the prisoners have been digging said tunnel in hopes of using it to escape.

Later that night, while the prisoners are in the barracks, they begin their escape. I guess they completed the tunnel, and now their plan is to kill a guard, get his gun, follow the tunnel out to a vehicle depot and steal a flatbed truck to aid in their getaway. Everything goes well, that is until the prisoner with the stolen shotgun from the now deceased prison guard trips and fires the shotgun, alerting the other, still-living guards. Well, the jig is up, so to speak, but the escapees proceed with their plans. They pile onto the back of the flatbed, and are soon being pursued by the warden and the guards. The pursuers quickly catch up to the slow flatbed truck, and begin to open fire on the escapees. The truck crashes, and the warden and the guards proceed to shoot all the escape convicts. On returning to the camp, the warden punishes the remaining prisoners for not relating the escape plan, thusly allowing the death of the guard. He the locks these guys up in a makeshift stockade, and tells them that the dead escaped convicts will all be buried in shallow graves.

Cut to a scene of the burying of the dead prisoners. Now here's something I didn't know, but apparently inhaling large amounts of formaldehyde vapors causes zombification shortly after the death of the inhaler. As the dead prisoners begin to rise from their graves, they decide the living must die. I guess it's a whole `revenge/the dead hate the living' motif...whatever...soon the once prisoners/now zombies break into the tool locker on the prison truck, steal various garden implements (See the horror of the hoe! See the terror of the trowel! See the barbarity of the bulb planter! Okay, it doesn't always work...) Once the zombies arm, no pun intended, themselves, they begin to make their way back to the prisoner, and the real horror begins...sort of...

Okay, there are zombies in this film, but there is absolutely no consuming of living flesh by these creatures. They basically run around killing various members, mostly prison guards, with axes, hoes, whatever. We really don't get to see any of this clearly, as the last ¾ of the movie takes place at night, and the lighting is poor. The zombies don't actually look half bad, but the level of decomposition displayed through the liberal use of makeup surely doesn't relay the fact that all these men are of the recently deceased. No real scares or horror to be had here, but the one thing I did appreciate was that the makers of the film decided to stick with a short running time (58 minutes), rather than pad out the story with loads of filler and/or stock footage. As far as the actors go, well, there was one recognizable face in character actor Carmen Filpi, whose latter roles mostly consisted of winos, hoboes, and old codgers in general, appearing in films like Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985), Wayne's World (1992), and The Wedding Singer (1998), to name a few.

Retromedia Entertainment provides a print of fairly funky quality here, but it is watchable. Special features include an intro bit by Son of Ghoul, a semi-famous creature feature host from Akron, Ohio. Also included is a theatrical trailer for another film titled Grave of the Vampire (1972), a film that was also directed by John Hayes, the same man who directed this film. I guess if I learned anything from this film, it's that formaldehyde, while not only being highly addictive, can actually bring the dead back to life...sort of...whatever...

Cookieman108

Rating:
Summary: The Garden Hoe Horror...
Review: Every once in awhile, I purchase a movie with absolutely no prior knowledge of the film, not even reading the various reviews that may be posted here. Sometimes I find an unpolished gem, and sometimes I find a road apple...the latter being the case with Garden of the Dead (1972).

Directed by John Hayes, who's other credits include The Farmer's Other Daughter (1965), Sweet Trash (1970), All the Lovin' Kinfolk (1970), and Jailbait Babysitter (1978), Garden of the Dead is a no budget zombie movie that failed to evoke nary a scare or a chill in this viewer.

The film takes place in Camp Hoover, a prison/work camp located somewhere in Colorado, or at least that's what the crude sign sez...we see convicts rolling 55 gallon barrels onto a flatbed truck, and based on the stenciled printing on the side of the drums, they all contain formaldehyde. We quickly learn the camp produces the foul smelling stuff, and also that the camp is about to be closed down, with the prisoners and guards to be relocated to different prisons, while the warden will be let go, as, apparently, his style of running things doesn't fit in with the department of corrections idea of how things should be done. I think the thing is the warden is 'old school', and the department of corrections, being the progressive institution that they are, is looking towards the future. Anyway, this figures little into the plot of the film, so I am unsure why they wasted time with this point.

Anyway, we soon get to hang with the prisoners, as they enjoy a midday break/meal. This prompts a number of prisoners to converge on the formaldehyde distiller, to which they begin huffing the vapors. No, really, they seem to be getting a high off the stuff, and this was pretty funny to watch. The prison guards don't seem to notice the men's absence, which I thought was a little strange as there's about 20 inmates in the prison camp, and about eight of them were hiding behind the shack-like structure housing the distiller. After getting their fill of the vapors, they move a tank next to the structure, which reveals a hole, one that leads to a tunnel. Seems the prisoners have been digging said tunnel in hopes of using it to escape.

Later that night, while the prisoners are in the barracks, they begin their escape. I guess they completed the tunnel, and now their plan is to kill a guard, get his gun, follow the tunnel out to a vehicle depot and steal a flatbed truck to aid in their getaway. Everything goes well, that is until the prisoner with the stolen shotgun from the now deceased prison guard trips and fires the shotgun, alerting the other, still-living guards. Well, the jig is up, so to speak, but the escapees proceed with their plans. They pile onto the back of the flatbed, and are soon being pursued by the warden and the guards. The pursuers quickly catch up to the slow flatbed truck, and begin to open fire on the escapees. The truck crashes, and the warden and the guards proceed to shoot all the escape convicts. On returning to the camp, the warden punishes the remaining prisoners for not relating the escape plan, thusly allowing the death of the guard. He the locks these guys up in a makeshift stockade, and tells them that the dead escaped convicts will all be buried in shallow graves.

Cut to a scene of the burying of the dead prisoners. Now here's something I didn't know, but apparently inhaling large amounts of formaldehyde vapors causes zombification shortly after the death of the inhaler. As the dead prisoners begin to rise from their graves, they decide the living must die. I guess it's a whole 'revenge/the dead hate the living' motif...whatever...soon the once prisoners/now zombies break into the tool locker on the prison truck, steal various garden implements (See the horror of the hoe! See the terror of the trowel! See the barbarity of the bulb planter! Okay, it doesn't always work...) Once the zombies arm, no pun intended, themselves, they begin to make their way back to the prisoner, and the real horror begins...sort of...

Okay, there are zombies in this film, but there is absolutely no consuming of living flesh by these creatures. They basically run around killing various members, mostly prison guards, with axes, hoes, whatever. We really don't get to see any of this clearly, as the last ¾ of the movie takes place at night, and the lighting is poor. The zombies don't actually look half bad, but the level of decomposition displayed through the liberal use of makeup surely doesn't relay the fact that all these men are of the recently deceased. No real scares or horror to be had here, but the one thing I did appreciate was that the makers of the film decided to stick with a short running time (58 minutes), rather than pad out the story with loads of filler and/or stock footage. As far as the actors go, well, there was one recognizable face in character actor Carmen Filpi, whose latter roles mostly consisted of winos, hoboes, and old codgers in general, appearing in films like Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985), Wayne's World (1992), and The Wedding Singer (1998), to name a few.

Retromedia Entertainment provides a print of fairly funky quality here, but it is watchable. Special features include an intro bit by Son of Ghoul, a semi-famous creature feature host from Akron, Ohio. Also included is a theatrical trailer for another film titled Grave of the Vampire (1972), a film that was also directed by John Hayes, the same man who directed this film. I guess if I learned anything from this film, it's that formaldehyde, while not only being highly addictive, can actually bring the dead back to life...sort of...whatever...

Cookieman108

Rating:
Summary: Only for true zombie fans. Everyone else avoid avoid!
Review: I rented this one years ago. It's not especially new or original in its plot and style. It's full of poor acting and utterly predictable actions and dialog. The rationale for how the inmates in the prison become zombies is ludicrous: They escape in a truck full of 55 gal. formaldehyde barrels. The prisoners put up a fight, but the authorities shoot them with machine guns and accidentally shoot the barrels too. Formaldehyde runs into the bullet holes in the prisoners' bodies. Bingo, you have zombies. Scientifically WRONG! Stories are so much more enjoyable and though provoking when the rationales for what happens seem at least remotely possible in REAL LIFE too. If the writers would have come up with a more believable and creative reason for why the inmates turned into zombies it might have at least been tolerable. As it was we fast forwarded through all the cliche filler material that was in lieu of any good writing and watched it in a fraction of the time. This one is even worse than most of the poor excuses for horror that are cranked out nowadays.

Rating:
Summary: -10000000 stars!
Review: Starts off at a prison filled with prisoners and cops. The (prisoners) start dosing up on formaldihyde. Then they make an escape and the cops chase after them and kills them and buries them in the ground. The formaldihyde in their system made them return to life as zombies. They go back to the prison to rage war against the cops with pick axes and shovels. These zombies don't eat flesh, they eat formaldihyde. Then they are melted by flashlights and the movie ends.

This movie is one of the worst zombie films i have ever seen. No person in his right mind would say this movie is great. The movie was only 67 min. long and the plot, the gore, everything about this movie was stupid!

(8 zombies)

most entertaining part: | uh......... yeh! |

Rating:
Summary: garden of the dead
Review: This movie was so bad...I had to laugh at my mistake of ordering it. Poor acting, background scenes, the whole movie was what my family refers to as a Class F(fluke) movie. The only good thing about my order was, the movie was received in excellent condition...probably because no one else had watched it! I can hardly believe zombies would be interested in the opposite sex
for any reason...the dead also were shot and killed...again.
My recomendation for the serious zombie enthusiast would be "Resident Evil". If all you want is to spend money and get a laugh "Garden of the Dead", which was for me a waste of my time and money, will definitely be your best bet.

Rating:
Summary: garden of the dead
Review: This movie was so bad...I had to laugh at my mistake of ordering it. Poor acting, background scenes, the whole movie was what my family refers to as a Class F(fluke) movie. The only good thing about my order was, the movie was received in excellent condition...probably because no one else had watched it! I can hardly believe zombies would be interested in the opposite sex
for any reason...the dead also were shot and killed...again.
My recomendation for the serious zombie enthusiast would be "Resident Evil". If all you want is to spend money and get a laugh "Garden of the Dead", which was for me a waste of my time and money, will definitely be your best bet.

Rating:
Summary: An A for effort
Review: Though not the best zombie movie ever made it is, by far, not the worse either. In fact there where enough erie and comical elements in this movie to make this short worth watching. What can be more funny then a bunch of prison inmates, I guessing somewhere in the south, sniffing formadelhyde to get high, breaking out of prison, being shot, buried and returning as zombies.....possibly because of their formaldehyde? The scariest part is when they come across a trailer that the girlfriend/wife of one of the inmates lives in. The stand around staring in the windows with a great deal of erie delight! Enjoy this scene, it's the best cinematography in the entire flick. The climax of the entire film, however, falls short. In fact there was more excitement in the middle of the movie then during the 'big finish'. Still worth a look though.

Rating:
Summary: An A for effort
Review: Though not the best zombie movie ever made it is, by far, not the worse either. In fact there where enough erie and comical elements in this movie to make this short worth watching. What can be more funny then a bunch of prison inmates, I guessing somewhere in the south, sniffing formadelhyde to get high, breaking out of prison, being shot, buried and returning as zombies.....possibly because of their formaldehyde? The scariest part is when they come across a trailer that the girlfriend/wife of one of the inmates lives in. The stand around staring in the windows with a great deal of erie delight! Enjoy this scene, it's the best cinematography in the entire flick. The climax of the entire film, however, falls short. In fact there was more excitement in the middle of the movie then during the 'big finish'. Still worth a look though.