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The Gardener (1975)
By lngway2go | January 31, 2008
Director: James H. Kay
Producer: Chalmer Kirkbride Jr.
Starring: Katherine Houghton, Joe Dallesandro, Rita Gam, James Congdon
Joe Dallesandro stars in this curious 70’s offering, in a role very similar to that which he plays in Flesh For Frankenstein (1973) and Blood for Dracula (1974). Carl (Joe Dallesandro) is a gardener with some amazing talents, not only as a gardener but as eye candy for the ladies as he puts his green fingers to use. But there is something mysterious and dangerous about Carl and his unnaturally vibrant gardens.
The Gardener opens with a woman sick in a hospital bed, but when she is brought a bouquet of flowers she starts freaking out and then suddenly dies. So either we know something isn’t quite right the plants in this film or the hospital stay didn’t agree with her.
When two friends visit the woman’s family to offer their condolences they notice the beautiful garden she has. It was nothing like this a few months before when they last saw it, and they are seriously impressed. With the gardener now out of a job Ellen (Katherine Houghton) is quick to jump on the opportunity to have the talented beef cake, I mean gardener, giving her beds a good seeing to. Well, providing her husband is okay with that, of course.The next day shirtless Carl is working for Ellen, much to Helena’s (Rita Gam) excited dismay. The problem is though that Ellen and her husband John (James Congdon) already have someone doing the gardening for them. The much older man has worked for the couple for years, and they don’t want to let him go, but the very quiet Carl (another trait carried over from Flesh… and Blood…) only works alone so they are forced to find him other work. But it’s not long before he is in hospital and out of the picture. What luck!
The garden grows very quickly, with flowers turning up all over the house in barely two weeks. The housemaids are a little superstitious about all the flowers and how unnatural it is for them to be growing so well. Even friends at a party say that some of the flowers are extremely rare and expensive, but Ellen pays them no mind. She loves the flowers, and the garden looks great. Ellen won’t hear a bad thing said about her delightful gardener Carl.
As Ellen becomes more and more obsessed with her flowers, her husband begins to get a bit worried. But when he finally meets Carl for the first time and sees him prancing around with his shirt off, he gets more than a little worried. But his wife isn’t going to cheat on him, right? Little does he know she’s already watching Carl swim naked in the pool at night!
When they decide to get dressed up for the carnival in town Ellen decides to go as a floral goddess, and when Carl gives her some glowing and pulsating flowers for the costume a maid is ready to throw them out. Luckily Ellen catches her at it, and gives her a good telling off. But while everyone is waiting for her at the party, she is too busy staring at herself in the mirror, mesmerized by the alluring power of the flowers. If it isn’t for her friend, Helena, she probably wouldn’t have made it down to the party and then onto the carnival.
When Ellen and Helena make it down to greet the guests everyone thinks Ellen looks gorgeous, but whenever John tries to touch her he gets pricked by the flowers, at one point drawing blood. He eventually rips some of the flowers from her dress in frustration.
The next day Ellen feels a little different, she’s getting tired of the flowers and their allure is giving a hung over like effect on her, maybe it’’s the after affects of the party the night before. She begins to question if she should get rid of Carl since John has offered to take her away on holiday for three weeks. Helena thinks it’s a fabulous idea, and is all to willing to take Carl off her hands so she doesn’t feel guilty letting him go. Helena’s garden needs a lot of tending to, Ellen later tells Carl.
Carl’s strange nature and peoples warnings are starting to sink in though, as Ellen agrees to Helena on one condition, that she is allowed to check on Carl’s previous employers to see what the mystery about him is. As they begin to dig deeper they discover that Carl’s previous employers are either dead or a bit loopy. But hey, this doesn’t matter to Helena, she’s about to have a hunky new gardener to tend to her weeds and she sends Ellen off home so she can get Carl to work right away.
When Ellen discovers one more person having died after employing Carl she gets worried about Helena and rushes back to her, but she’s not in the house. She’s in the garden!
The Gardener just meanders on. That’s not to say it’s a bad film, it’s a fairly decent film even though nothing much really happens. The problem is that the Gardener, as a character, is never really expanded upon. We aren’t really sure what he’s all about. It is quite clear he’s a mysterious and quiet character, who goes around the garden looking solemn (and hunky) while flowers of all descriptions turn up around the house. Plus the fact he has a very green finger or two, but other than that there’s no real development or revelation as to his motivations.
The film manages to bring a nice air of menace to the proceedings. There’s not a moment where you don’t feel like you aren’t trapped in some strange garden and being drugged by the fragrances. This is what works in the films favor; if they had failed at this, the whole film would have failed. And although I would have liked more depth to the story, this element seems to keep you watching. There are no allusions as to the fact there isn’t something right about this gardener, and I guess that really should be enough. If you are expecting murders and real mayhem you’ll be sorely disappointed, because there is nothing much to speak of at all. The Gardener is almost of TV movie stature, but luckily it manages to rise above that level and succeeds in being entertaining.
Subversive Cinema have done this film proud though. Not only do we get a poster and some lobby cards, but there’s a commentary track from Joe Dallesandro (I hope he says more than he does in the movie!). There’’s a second commentary track from director James H. Key, as well as, featurettes with the cast and crew and then some of the normal extras. We are also given, most importantly, the fully uncut version of the film with scenes not previously in the film when it was release as Seeds of Evil. The film looks really nice though, very rich colours to show off the floral arrangements! At the moment Subversive have paired this together with another of their releases, Freakmaker, to make it an opportunity not to be missed.
Topics: American Horror, Joe Dallesandro |