Customer Reviews

Shadows in the Garden (7th Anniversary Edition)

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This well made film is about a hero monster that sometimes looks like the DC Comics character SWAMP THING, Was it Marvel Comics MAN-THING.
The mood of filming,With lighting and effect ( Keep in mind,No Budget here).
I really could have it run longer the bad guy (a human albiet serial killer) has little set up to his evil...Except newspaper headlines, A cost cutting effect, Probably.
Wayne Spitzer did the majority of work on film with Eric Gollinger doing a nice supportive turn.

Shot mostly in black-and-white, in a style reminiscent of Vampyr and Nosferatu, Shadows in the Garden explores Cthulhu themes when a killer targets the Sarnsath Botanical Park in Cthulhu Gardens to prey upon his victims.

One of those likely victims is Lt. Green, a 35 year old cop who disappeared and is thought to be dead, killed by "Cutthroat Cthulhu."

Cutthroat is a lunar killer, coming out when the moon is full. Something else comes out when the moon is full, too, however, a creature that looks like a humanoid lizard. This creature is somehow tied to the park and the town; he feeds a pet dog and strokes its fur lovingly. He stares through windows as a woman sleeps and a love theme plays. He is a shy, gentle soul.

It's only a matter of time before Cutthroat and the creature cross paths.

One of the few truly pro-monsters horror films out there, Shadows in the Garden does an excellent job of humanizing the creature, of making us empathize with him, trapped outside, far away from the life and loves he recalls. The pacing of the film is somewhat uneven, but the bodywork of the creature is evocative and expressive, and the cinematography works to create a Lovecraftian mood. Shadows in the Garden is worth a look.

I'm a big fan of H.P. Lovecraft, and as anyone who has read many of his tales can testify, committing his works to film has got to be a challenge. While I admire the efforts that certainly went into this piece, I can't recommend it to fellow fans of the unique horror writer, as it is too 'cheesy', for lack of a better word. Low budget, yes I get it, but there's too much more going on to shift the viewer's attention away from the action, like the smokey lens, the rain that's obviously overlaid on the film, the tight camera shots filled with objects to obscure. There's just too much camouflage.

The use of Cthulhu's name for the location, was just a bit too overbearing, where the writer himself was vastly subtler, and makes it clear that names from the pantheon are rarely found or spoken. Calling the place Sarnath Gardens was more than enough to convey the nature of the homage.

I don't want to beat these guys up, as I am pleased at any efforts to bring Lovecraft's works to the screen, but I would recommend 'The Call of Cthulhu', a silent black & white film with Matt Foyer, and 'Dirt Dauber' by Steve Daniels, also black & white. Daniels successfully plays with camera angles, where this film overdoes it. There's a TV movie from the 70s with Dean Stockwell, called 'The Dunwich Horror', which is early TV movie quality, but Stockwell does a good job bringing the heartless menace and revulsion inspiring nature of his character to life.