The Creeping Garden (2014)

Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

"The Creeping Garden" is a feature length documentary exploring the work of fringe scientists, mycologists and artists, and their relationship with the extraordinary plasmodial slime mold.This is not a documentary for everyone. Granted, documentaries themselves are an acquired taste, but this is not the sort that has a lot of action, preaches social justice, or focuses on a forgotten piece of history. Even if we classify it as a nature documentary, it may not appeal to the same people who enjoy lions hunting giraffes.That disclaimer aside, hopefully you are not scared off, because this is a one of a kind film about a topic you probably never considered before. This is where nature meets science, which meets art, and even psychology and a little bit of history. Who knew that one of the most beautiful things on earth is mold? Special mention has to be made of the soundtrack / film score from Jim O'Rourke, which Arrow Video has so kindly included with their release. I actually listened to the score before watching the movie, and it really sets the tone. You feel like you are slowly entering an alien landscape that is both friendly, but somehow terrifying... foreign, and still welcoming. It is a score like no other. I wish more films were released with their soundtracks. Grindhouse Releasing is very good about this (thank you, Bob Murawski) so maybe Arrow is following their lead? If the soundtrack alone was not reason enough to pick up the Arrow release, the copious amount of bonus features should be. We have audio commentary by directors Tim Grabham and Jasper Sharp, essentially doubling the information. There is "Biocomputer Music", a short film by Grabham on the first biocomputer music system, allowing a two-way musical dialogue between man and slime mold. "Return to the Fungarium", a featurette revealing further treasures of the fungarium at Kew Gardens. "Feeding Habits of Physarum", a featurette on the feeding preferences and dislikes of slime molds. If that is still not enough, there are still three cinema iloobia short films: "Milk" (2009), "Rotten" (2012) and "Paramusical Ensemble" (2015).

This seemed like a promising documentary, as the images I saw in the TV-spot were pretty cool and it looked to be a pretty scientific thing, also.Unfortunately, the scientific side of things was not all that impressive. The imagery was beautiful though, and the enthusiasm of some the amateurs ('those who do this work out of love for the subject', as is explained once more in the film) was fun to observe.The experiment with simulating maps of the world with the slime moulds looked promising, but seemed rather simple and logical in the end with not much news to report. Enabling a slime mould to make music was interesting, but only for a little bit.One remark in the film underlined my relative disappointment here, and sounded somewhat like the following: "We don't what slime moulds may have to offer, but we'll keep at it." My comment on that: I've seen some pretty neat stuff here, but that was really all! Good luck, guys.5 out of 10.