atinder
This movie start just like The Shining and sometime it's feels like you are watching The Omen! Plot: A troubled young boy and his father on a road trip stumble upon a rural farm where the elderly owner has sinister plans for the both of them involving witchcraft and evilThis movie is not great but far far far away from being a really bad movie I did enjoy this movie, there were some great creepy scenes this (This did NOT have those silly scares scenes) i love bathroom scenes and Mirrors stuff (Least that one scene from this movie better the movie called Mirrors) and Farther get angry with son (it might be a bit of the The Shining again) but it works very well with the rest of the movie Acting was not bad at all it was actually really good!Some might say this is a The Shining rip of It far from it.7/10 Good movie
kirk_bones
i saw this film on the horror channel which at last is beginning to show some intelligent movies and less of the brainless slasher movies that it is so fond of. so to the plot A young boy with deep psychological problems,played brilliantly by Adam Taylor Gorden, and his dad go on holiday to a small ranch,owned by the very creepy Lance Henrickson in one of his better roles. It turns out that Lance Hendrickson is the devils disciple and the boy has to defeat him and prevent the reversal of the apocalypse. This movie is shot brilliantly in vivid colours,the death scenes aren't many but the ones there are ,are very well executed(no pun intended) Being of a religious persuasion ,i found this film also had some deep fundamental truth's like love the sinner hate the sin and some greater being having to have been in charge of the big bang. Add to this some deeply moving images ,the most moving being a horse crying and u have a very intelligent well thought out horror movie. The only real complaint is that it took a bit long to explain the plot and the final scene was a bit confusing.These are only minor details and don't take anything away from this movie. This film is definitely worth 8/10
killarmy2001belgium
I saw this movie at the BIFFF (Brussels international festival of fantasy film) and found it struggling with it's plot material.A young boy suffers from nightmarish visions and as a result has a tendency to put his body full of razor cuts. The boy resides with his father who is recovering from alcoholism and fails to be of support for his troubled son.When father and son end up having a car accident caused by a vision the boy has, they get rescued by an elder man named Ben (Lance Henriksen).Ben has a spooky air around him; vanishing and appearing at random pace throughout his ranch, always the sharp answer or life lesson on his tongue.Ben has a weird agenda as he manipulates the father into alcoholism again and the boy into experiencing weird visions.The movie tries so hard to build up the Christian undertone (think tree of life, adam & eve, apocalypse themes) but fails at each occasion.The visions of the boy are the only up tempo sequences as the rest of the movie focuses on Lance Henriksen talking in Chinese fortune cookie lingo.A shame, because the production values are there, the star (Henriksen) is wasted with this kind of script and the editing tries to contrast every moment of suspense with random actions (like heating up a stove, cleaning a fish, ...) This is B-movie material, a rental for the Henriksen fans, others should wisely avoid.
Coventry
First and foremost, it's a VERY bad idea to schedule a mainly story-driven and atmospheric horror movie like "The Garden" at 3am during a Film Festival and after exhilarating movies like "The Hills Have Eyes"-remake or "Neighborhood Watch"! The subject matter "The Garden" brings forward is interesting, but too abstract and definitely not compelling (let alone exciting) enough to keep you on the edge of your seat. A divorced father and his psychologically troubled son are involved in a car accident and recover at the house of a mysterious old man (Lance Henriksen in his umpteenth inferior horror role). The old guy's garden turns out to be the genuine Paradise of Eden; the place where our whole existence began according to the Holy Bible. Through the re-occurring nightmares of young Sam, the apocalypse can be inflicted in this exact same garden (don't ask me how as I somehow must have missed that part) and maybe that even is what the old man desires to achieve! Don Michael Paul's second film as a director starts out surprisingly stylish with elegant camera-work and a patient drawing of characters and settings. The first murder-sequence also comes at the exact right timing and it's quite bloody, especially considering the tone of the film so far. For reasons I fail to comprehend, "The Garden" then turns into a confusing and painfully dull mess that eventually reverts to annoying clichés and predictable plot twists. The only elements left to enjoy near the end are the creepy music and young Adam Taylor Gordon's impressive acting performance which easily surpasses the quality of his lines.
AD
