artpf 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.

Coventry 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.

j-s p When I come home late from work and I had a rough day, I don't want to go to bed right away, but I don't want to start a 2h00 complicated movie either...So, this one is a very good option! About an hour long, dumb characters, scary ambiance music as well as jazzy, old Spider-Man-cartoon-feel music, the french dubbed version I have is totally hilarious! It goes down very easily with a few beers, there's just a good cheap feel to it. The prisoner I like the best is the one small bald guy with the big eyes, over-acting all the way through! Not that the other actors are better, but this guy does it like it was his last shot to make it big and be discovered! See it if you're a zombie-maniac-low-budget like me.

Kastore This is a fun "movie" - I usually don't consider anything below an hour in length as a movie, but for this I'll make an exception. Several things make "Garden" worthy as a quick late-nite rental. First, the movie gets into the zombie action as soon as possible, establishing the situation quickly as though it can't wait for the dead to rise and attack. "Garden of the Dead" is also creepy. Most of the movie takes place at night, and the zombies stepping through the eerie fog, as well as the surrounded-by-zombies, cut-off-from-help situation of the people in the prison all add up to a healthy feeling of fright. My favorite scene was the woman trapped in the motorhome while the horde of zombies stands motionless around the front windows, just staring at her."Garden" is incredibly low budget. The prison appears to have all the soundness of construction of a house of cards. Most of the effects consist of fog and the zombies' green, though grotesque-looking, makeup. The zombies also try to demonstrate some sort of superhuman abilities by jumping out of the darkness at top speeds and attacking people before disappearing back into the night. An entertaining flic for B-horror fans. 7/10