Garden of the Dead, 1972

    Camp Hoover, in Windsor, CO is a deeply-rural, hard-time penitentiary work farm that apparently makes and refines formaldehyde among its other products. And, wouldn’t you know, some of the prisoners have taken to sniffing the stuff for a cheap ’n’ easy high. Of course, some of these men become hopeless addicted!

    A daring, late-night jailbreak is planned! And seven or eight of the inmates tunnel out under the wall, and attempt getting to and highjacking the camp truck.

    One of the men, however, because he was so high on the vapor, accidentally alerts the guards.

    The old-school, hard-nosed warden, already planning on quitting the increasingly softening prison system, shows no mercy on the almost escapees and shoots them all dead. Then, for further insult to injury, all of the  corpses are tossed into a mass grave… in the formaldehyde-soaked ground. What could possibly go wrong?

    I'll tell you what! The dead rise up!!! They rise up and seek revenge on, well, everyone! Being still at least somewhat sentient, one, the undead ringleader, says, “We will destroy the living!” and starts handing out farm equipment - axes, shovels, hoes, (everything needed to grow formaldehyde, I guess!) to his newly resurrected cohorts.

    As the growling ‘zombies’ run stealthily around, ‘picking’ off the living with their farming tools, the remaining living prisoners and guards team up to seek a stronghold against the undead assassins.

    The breakdown: The Zombies in ‘Garden of the Dead’ are dead, but have retained some reasoning. They use tools, stealth, and, occasionally, language. They still crave the formaldehyde vapor like propaganda-film junkies, but still manage to attack and evade.

    So, the undead adhere to only the one of the ‘Rules of Romero,’ in that they are recently deceased. No consuming of flesh, no transmission of zombism, and no need to destroy the brain. As such, although no military correlation, these are most closely related to Nazi Zombies, or the ‘vampires’ from Matheson’s ‘Last Man On Earth.’ (Think, “Neville, come out!”)

    Acting was okay. About what one would expect from an early Troma feature. But it was sincere. And. perhaps because it was such early entry into the genre, (four or so years after Night of the Living Dead,) this means that “Garden” doesn’t need to try too hard to be different, (i.e. funny.) As such, it succeeds!

    Sure it never won any awards, or will ever be considered anything more than a D-grade, low-budget, zombie film, but I liked it!

    The ZMR, my Zombi Movie Rubrik, (which keeps me as close to impartial as possible,) gave Garden of the Dead a 1.8 out of a possible 4.0. Surprisingly, I agree with this rating. I mean, it does ring in as below average, but it takes itself seriously, and there were some genuine scares.

    Here is a YouTube clip, (can’t call it an honest ‘Trailer,’ just a few minutes from the flick. Enjoy!

GARDEN OF THE DEAD 

Dead Earth, 2019

AKA Paradise Z, AKA Two Of Us

    Our story opens in a tropical resort in Thailand where two young women live alone in silence hiding out. They go about their days sneaking around the resort quietly and armed, covering one another while constantly on the watch for danger.

    The monotony of their existence is expressed thoroughly in these establishing scenes by continuing on for a full 20-some-odd minutes. However, as the duo are lithe and comely, we the audience are treated to shower scenes, topless sunbathing, bikini yoga, and yes! Even some girl-on-girl lovin’. 

    Now, I’m certainly NOT one to complain about this type of thing, mind you, but I do think the potential viewer should be made aware of just how close to a ‘sexploitation film’ the first quarter of this movie is!

    Moving on - When, finally, the ladies do venture out of their somewhat fortified compound, it is due to the fuel of their generator running low. So, the two arm up from their impressive little arsenal, don some impromptu tactical gear, load up a extended-length electric golf cart, and head out in search of supplies.

    It turns out that other meeting up with other survivors is not ideal. A chance encounter combined with paranoia and a rash decision or two makes meet & greets brief and messy.

    Our first actual zombie appears after a full 50 minutes in the film’s only expositional flashback. However, undead encounters proper take place soon after that, as the pair returns home and discovers that their stronghold has been breeched. What follows is an attempt to escape their one-time fortress to uncertain safety.

    Dead Earth's zombies are your standard running growlers, but very purposeful and quite athletic in pursuit! Of the Rules of Romero,  the dead seem to follow all but the slow and shambolic method of mobility, as well as remind us of a lesser known method of dispatch mentioned in ’68, immolation. (As Sherriff McClelland said , “Beat 'em or burn 'em. They go up pretty easy.”) They also introduce a new one - that zombies are afraid of water because they can’t swim. This, I am sure was introduced mainly to establish a tense scene of the undead surrounding one of the women while she is in the river. 

    Our two main protagonists, (of whom we get to see plenty!) are likable enough, but even with the expositional flash-back and some chatter between themselves, they are just lacking any real depth of character. This is pretty disappointing because there are only the two, and they had the lion’s share of an hour to make themselves more relatable.

 Once the action DOES get going, it is pretty entertaining, but it doesn’t really go anywhere - just another ‘chase, escape, repeat’ -type of thing.

So, I got out the ol’ Zombie Movie Rubric to grade Dead Earth as objectively as possible, (since, clearly, I was not that big of a fan!) and to my surprise, it earned itself a whopping 1.44 points out of a possible 4.0. The zombies, (although I am NOT a fan of runner/growler types,) and the beautiful Thai scenery
being the only real things buoying this above the ‘avoid’ level. 

Here is a YouTube link for those still interested, but just know that almost ALL of the footage in the trailer is from the final 20 minutes of the flick! DEAD EARTH