Garden of the Dead (1972)

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Convicts on a chain gang sniff experimental formaldehyde fumes to get high. They attempt a prison break and are shot down by the guards. Buried in the prison garden, they rise from the dead, killing all in their path with shovels and hoes who get in their way for their quest to get high once more off the formaldehyde.Kinda funny premise, no? Starts off pretty good actually. Hayes, made a bunch of offbeat exploitation films but was also nominated for an academy award one time!They used dry ice for the formaldehyde and of course nobody notices the prisoners sniffing it, and I guess we're not supposed to see the prisoner who laffs when the smoke goes in his face. Must be a minimum security prison cuz the place is surrounded by a wooden-wire fence that would easily be compromised. But escape they do anyway.My big criticism is this -- it takes half the movie for the zombies to emerge. And let's not forget this movie is less than an hour long! When we see them they have joker like makeup and you can see their chest flesh where the make up ends!But there IS something about this movie that is different and enjoyable. In a super low budget kind of way. Interesting statement on addiction, anyway.

Wow. I never thought I would see a drug addicted zombie movie with a snappy 1950's jazz score! LOL That damn jazzy score just ruined for me. only towards the end did it become a more creepy like score but by then it was too late.The fact that the convicts on a chain gang sniff experimental formaldehyde fumes to get high and that in turn, turns them into raccoon-looking zombies is hilarious.The dialog is funny. One zombie says ,"We must destroy the living, and get back to our liquid soon." I did not recognized any actor in this fiasco. For some I believe it was their one and only screen appearance!And to top it off, the version i saw was only 57mins! And even at that length, it was too long!This 'Garden' should definable be left alone and left to dry and die!

Inmates under the influence at formaldehyde at the worst run prison ever (guards don't even notice when at least eight inmates vanish at the same time to sniff gas behind the corner) undertake an unsuccessful escape attempt. Unsuccessful because they're all shot dead by the guards. The prisoners must have been really drugged to mess this up, because the guards and management of this facility were way too stupid to prevent this. Either way, the prisoners' truck strand in the middle of a prison cemetery and several barrels of formaldehyde are spilled into the soil. Zombies emerge from two inches underneath the surface and – like most members of the living dead society – they're only out to do one thing … Score more formaldehyde, of course! "Garden of the Dead" is a pretty pointless and redundant early 70's exploitation that drags tremendously even though it's barely one hour long. There's hardly any gore and the make-up effects on the zombies are quite pathetic, but the film nevertheless benefices from a fairly sinister atmosphere and a bizarrely unsettling jazzy music score. The zombies easily rank amongst the lamest and least threatening living dead members ever. They just want to get drugged, so they're pretty easy to kill. It's definitely not the worst movie in its league, but nothing memorable neither.

An escaped chain gang get hooked on a strange brand of formaldehyde-only to be shot dead. This formaldehyde has a strange effect though, as they come back as ticked off zombies."Garden of the Dead" is a movie obviously influenced by the far superior "Night of the Living Dead", though it's still a watchable slice of 70's horror/exploitation cheese. Sure, the music doesn't fit, the movie's premise, while not as dumb as say, "The Corpse Grinders", is still incredibly stupid, people do dumb things, and it's poorly acted.That out of the way, nobody is watching a movie like "Garden of the Dead" for high artistic aspirations. They are watching it because it's laughably bad, but not unwatchable, and oddly enduring in it's own stupid way. Besides, they don't make movies like this anymore, and it kind of makes one wish they did.That's all in all why I can't rate this movie. On one hand, it's incompetent and dumb on all levels. On the other hand, you can't help but love the stupidity on display. That's why it defies a proper rating in my opinion.