Growing up in a cult has just got to be a hot mess… but, shit can always get worse!
To wit: Rebecca (Natacza Boon) had just that experience… which came to a hyper-violent end, as such things often do… but as an adult, our heroine just can’t keep the ghosts of the past at bay, literally!
And about those groovy ghoulies… they have a wild hair up their arcane asses about Rebecca helping them to bring those responsible for their demise to supernatural vengeance!
Director Olaf Ittenbach (who co-wrote the film with Thomas Reitmair) delivers a tight, fast moving supernatural shocker with Garden of Love, and for the most part, this fright flick hits the mark!
The cast gives the material their all (Boon in particular makes for an engaging heroine), the story has a strong structure (more so that some of Ittenbach’s more hallucinatory cinematic offerings), and the production has a decidedly slick look to it… but we both know what your arcane asses came to see…
To that end, Garden of Love shines like a blood-red beastly beacon!
After the first act (which admittedly has a few sequences of ghoulish goodness as well), this one kicks into splatter overdrive as bodies are subjected to all manner of delightfully over-the-top violent trauma, and plentiful, top-shelf effects that are utilized to bring this mutilated mayhem to the screen is sure to bring a smile 666 miles-wide to the face of any gore-hound lookin’ for a gruseome good time!
In the negative column, there are a few instances where we have to set through characters doing a bit of that good ol’ exposition dumping… but, as you may surmise, those aforementioned slaughter scenes will have you grooving right back into the action at hand.
To enhance your enjoyment of Garden of Love, Unearthed Films have included a few extra features on this Blu-ray release including a look at what it took to bring this film to life via “making of” and “behind-the-scenes” featurettes, as well as the feature’s trailer and an image gallery.
Garden of Love is an enjoyable preternatural picture well worth giving a wicked whirl based on the strength of it’s gore effects alone!
