The Cement Garden

Amazon.com

A bizarre and compelling story of family secrets based on the novel by Ian McEwan (who also wrote the novel upon which The Comfort of Strangers is based), this British film tells the complex tale of four children who conspire to hide their dead mother's body to avoid being split apart and sent to an orphanage. Their deception works for a while, as they become a self-sufficient family unit. Soon, however, mistrust and a deeply antagonistic relationship between the older siblings rife with sexual overtones, as well as a snooping suitor with designs on the older sister, threaten to destroy their well-constructed facade. Adapted and directed by Andrew Birkin, this offbeat film is disturbing but a riveting find for anyone interested in new discoveries from the world of international film. --Robert Lane

Customer Reviews:

Big Wow.......2006-12-04

Aspiring production designers and location scouts should take note of "The Cement Garden" (1993) as an example of especially good use of an available on-the-cheap location. Like the equally low-budget "Carnival of Souls", the film owes much of its effectiveness to the creative use of an available location. "The Cement Garden's" outdoor shots should look familiar as Stanley Kubrick used the location back in 1987 for the main battle sequence of "Full Metal Jacket". He used the abandoned Beckton Gasworks just across from the Royal Docks area (Beckton-Silverton London). The area has now been transformed into London City Airport.

As a film, "The Cement Garden" could best be described as pretentious (marked by an unwarranted claim to importance or distinction). It is a movie that tries embarrassingly hard to be more than the sum of its parts. The strategy is to introduce shocking and scandalous elements in such a casual way that it will amp up the effect of breaking taboos far beyond what they would otherwise merit. This too owes much to Kubrick (insert "Lolita" here).

"The Cement Garden" is what you would get if Gregg Araki remade "Our Mother's House" on a shoestring budget; although it is safe to say Araki would have done a much better job of acting for the camera direction. It is an adaptation of Ian McEwan's controversial novel, but as the adapting was done by Director Andrew Birkin (later to be blamed for "The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc" script), the result is likely to be disappointing to readers of McEwan's book.

I can't actually recommend the film although some viewers will enjoy and/or be shocked by it. It somehow manages to be both melodramatic and boring; I found viewing possible only in 20 minute segments (not so much because it was painful but because it was not involving enough for me to ignore household interruptions). Since the macabre elements aren't particularly shocking (just a couple of stylish "Blue Velvet" type shots), Birkin must fall back on incest and gender identity. It is one perversion too many and there is no logical connection between the two.

The story is about a family of six (mother, father, two daughters and two sons). The older son is meant to look like a girl, the older daughter is meant to look like a boy, and the younger son wants to be a girl. The mother's death occurs a few weeks after the father, and the children conceal her death in an effort to stay together.

The story is told from the point of view of the oldest boy, who is turned on by his own reflection and by his tease of an older sister. Since he looks so much more feminine than her, his sexual orientation may actually be straight. The younger sister (who is not involved in any of this) looks perfectly normal but spends a lot of time writing letters to her dead mother.

Like "Our Mother's House" (a far better film), an older man is inserted into the story in an effort to make something happen. While a little hard to decipher, the basic themes concern the problems associated with assuming responsibilities before you are emotionally mature enough for them.

In fairness, an attempt is made to insert an allegorical element into the film, as the older boy frequently does a voice-over reading of a science fiction story. This is meant to reflect his internal moral struggles but the connection with the events of the story is rather fuzzy. Not surprising since the weak direction builds neither suspense nor convincing characters. But at least there is that great production design.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

The book it ain't, but it has some redeeming qualities........2006-06-07

The Cement Garden (Andrew Birkin, 1993)

There's a book, and it seems that where there's a book, there's a movie. It is the case that at least ninety-five, some would say closer to ninety-nine percent of the time, the movie is just not as good as the book. I tend to be a bit more liberal than most in that regard, but in this case, while the movie's decent, it has nothing on McEwan's stunning first novel.

Jack (Gormenghast's Andrew Robertson), Julie (Charlotte Gainsbourg, soon to star in the highly anticipated Have Mercy on Us All, based on Fred Vargas' smash hit novel), Sue (Alice Coulthard, in her only screen appearance), and Tom (Ned Birkin, also in his only screen appearance) are four kids living in England. Their father (Munich's Hanns Zischler) dies of a heart attack, and soon after, their mother (Sinead Cusack, recently of V for Vendetta) becomes mysteriously ill. She knows she's dying, and attempts to do as much as she can to make sure the children can survive on their own after her death. The children attempt to do so, in a sort of Lord of the Flies meets The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane way, until Julie gets herself a beau, Derek (veteran TV actor Jochen Horst), which throws Jack-- whose feelings for Julie have become increasingly complex-- into a crisis.

The main difference between the novel and the film is that the kids' mother dies much earlier on in the novel than she does in the film, and so the whole thematic thrust of the novel is forced into roughly half the movie's hour and forty-five minute running time. There's not much chance to do much development there; Birkin chooses to content himself with abbreviating the development of the themes that are birthed when the children start living on their own, and develop those start while everyone's still living as a family. The result isn't a bad film, by any means, but those who have read the novel are likely to find it lacking. Still, there's something about Birkin stocking a film with incestuous undercurrents with his own nieces and nephews that cannot help but invite all sorts of speculation, and there's certainly something to be said for any film that shows off the gorgeous Charlotte Gainsbourg in all her glory. An interesting artifact, but no matter why you're watching it, you're likely to get more out of the book. ** ½

As Dark A Movie As You'll See.......2006-03-23

Based on Ian McEwan's fine novel by the same name, CEMENT GARDEN is the tale of four children who are orphaned twice in rapid succession by the deaths of their father and mother. The film catches the sheer horror of children's having to deal with the deaths of parents and of their attempts to somehow carry on with their lives. The photgraphy captures the bleakness of both the home the children inhabit as well as the urban environment around them.

The acting by the youngsters is really quite remarkable. The plot follows very closely McEwan's novel. On the other hand, this great novelist's works seem-- at least to me-- to be almost untranslatable to any other medium, certainly not the fault of the director. What I would never have gleaned from this movie because of the dialogue that is often incomprehensible, had I not previously read the novel, is why these children do what they do with their mother's body. That is totally necessary for understanding the movie and a major flaw.

Haunting adaptation.......2006-02-04

From the opening shots I was mesmerised by this superb adaptation of Ian Mcewans first novel. Dreamy visuals, a haunting soundtrack and near perfect perfomances from the entire cast succeed in bringing to life Mcewan's story as the eerie fable he surely intended it to be but which even his prose could not quite fully capture on the printed page. The recurrent theme in his fiction of the tragic gap between idealism and reality has never been told with more elegance and beauty than here, a perfect little gem of british cinema.

A Dark Story of Human Warmth.......2005-10-18

The Cement Garden is the story of a family transformed by tragedy. When the single mother of four children dies, her death is kept secret by the children. The children fear the prospect of being divided and forced into the homes of strangers. The children begin enjoying new freedoms and some of the quieter aspects of each sibling begin to surface and change their small world. The story is haunting and beautiful and takes us into a realm beyond taboos and social norms. The characters in this story have to survive poverty and loss. They manage to remain gentle with one another in the midst of hardship. The movie climaxes in a dark and erotic bliss that expresses a vision of man against the world. This is a great film that blurs the line between innocence and vice. The performances are top notch and the story is engaging. I highly recommend it for anyone willing to stray a bit off the beaten path.

Troma Triple B-Header, Vol. 3 - Garden of the Dead Zombie Collection

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3 movies, 3 misses
=)

Troma Triple B-Header, Vol. 3 - Garden of the Dead Zombie Collection
Starring: Susan Charney , John Dennis , Morton Dennis , Jack Driscoll (II) , and Carmen Filpi
Manufacturer: TROMA ENTERTAINMENT INC.
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0002M5TSY
Release Date: 2004-08-31

Description

The Troma Tripe B-Header is now a regular series! Get three full length Troma films on a single DVD for an incredible price!

The first feature on this disk is the DVD premiere of John Hayes' Garden of the Dead. In a remote prison work camp, the prisoners have taken a liking to getting high on toxic fumes. When they die during an attempted escape, the warden discovers these dangerous criminals are now unstable zombies! The labor camps have been transformed into a Garden of the Dead and it's time for the harvest!

The second title is Jim Larsen's Buttcrack. Starring and featuring the music of the legendary Mojo Nixon, Buttcrack follows the exploits of a man who seeks the assistance of a Bible-banging preacher man to help ward off his zombie roommate.

The final title is Chad Ferrin's Unspeakable, which features a father striking out against the world after the death and ressurection of his young child.

Customer Reviews:

3 movies, 3 misses.......2005-09-17

The first film on this disc is Garden of the Dead- clocking in at a little over an hour, even though it sucks, you won't feel like you wasted too much time (uh, right). The premise, and I'm not giving anything away because you smell it coming a mile away, is: Formaldihyde + prison workers = zombies. I can't say I enjoyed this, save for the prison camp signs written in magic marker. The second film is titled Unspeakable- scenario: car accident causes father's remorse, causes wife to be a vegetable, causes husband to kill & causes wife to have uncontrollable bowel problems(and her physical therapist loves her for it, yuk!)- this movie sucked also. The last movie, I believe, is titled Buttcrack??? not too sure, because after enduring the first two films, I simply couldn't be bothered with the last one.

=).......2004-11-05

"DVD Special Features
* A special introduction by Lloyd Kaufman "

Oh yeah, a real "special feature." At the beginning of the DVD, before the menu comes up, you get Kaufman being an idiot. I wasn't able to skip through it or anything. I just threw it on, did the laundry, walked the dog, learned the language of the written Egyptians, and took my girlfriend to lunch. Then I went back and the menu was there. Ok. Now it gets good.

Garden of the Dead-- This movie isn't too bad. Too bad it's boring, though. So boring. I just kinda sat there, wishing it was worse so I could shut it off. The ending was pretty flat too. The story is this: a bunch of prisoners have been getting high off formaldahyde fumes. Well, maybe it's something else because they attempt a breakout, all get killed, and then come back to kill the guards and the prisoners who didn't want to go with them. There's absolutley no gore. The "zombies" just run up to ppl with axes in their hands and slam into them with their shoulders. Bam. The person is dead. Or they have the view of them "hacking" the person up half-obstructed by a car or a fence. Blah. I suppose it's done better than most low-budget films. I mean, it's better to see that than horribly fake effects.
The movie's alright. Just boring, boring, boring.

Buttcrack-- Well, I was definitely not expecting anything good from this movie. It's about a guy and his roommate. The guy wants to propose, but hte roommate keeps ruining it. Then the roommate goes to take a bath, and has the radio on super loud. The guy goes, tries to shut it off, but is too flustered and he ends up dropping it in the bath, electorcuting the roommate. Then the roommates sister brings him back for revenge.

The acting is terrible. Simply terrible. O man. It's SO bad. I can't emphasize this enough. The only bright spot is Mojo Nixon as PREACHER MAN BOB.

But somehow, it's still funny. You'd have to see it to believe me.

Unspeakable-- Pure sickness. It's really good, though. The plot's complicated. I don't want to say anything because it might ruin things. It's a good movie, but I don't really want to watch it again for a long time. It's disturbing.

It's a good set if you've got an open mind. And if you're looking to buy anything put out by Troma, I'm sure you do.

Scarecrows/Garden of the Dead Special Double Feature

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SCARECROWS(1988) Rare Scarcity Value Horror Film. Directed by William Wesley

Scarecrows/Garden of the Dead Special Double Feature

ProductGroup: DVD
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ASIN: B000M3W0YO

Customer Reviews:

SCARECROWS(1988) Rare Scarcity Value Horror Film. Directed by William Wesley.......2007-07-10

Directed by WILLIAM WESLEY(His Film: Route666) ---------Starring: TED VERNON, MICHAEL SIMMS, RICHARD VIDAN, Kristina Sanborn, Victoria Christian as Kellie, B.J.Turner as Bert. ----------------- About this Movie: This is something rare a truly frightening horror film, loaded with suspense, intelligent writing, and decent acting. The story involves a group of military deserters who have ripped off a federal money exchange and are flying south in a stolen cargo plane. They land in a secluded wilderness of cornfields filled with Scarecrows. Special Make Up Effects: Norman Cabrera(Who assisted Oscar winning special effects master RICK BAKER), their famous works are STAR WARS series, Fright Night part2, Videodrome, Beauty & the Beast, Gremlins2, King Kong, An American Werewolf in London, Thriller, The Ring, Planet of the Apes, Hellboy, X-Men, etc. ----------- Scarecrows shows what you can do with a very flimsy plot line and a low budget. Rather than concentrate on characters or story, the film leans more towards aesthetics; as the tale is portrayed within a very creepy atmosphere, and the central monsters of the title capitalise well on their natural scare factor. Like clowns, scarecrows are eerie creations and it's clear that director William Wesley knows that, as their dark and foreboding image makes up the backbone of this tale of terror. The only real theme that is put on display in this film comes from the idea of greed, as it is that very thing that gets all the central protagonists into life-threatening danger. The film follows a bunch of soldiers that have stolen a lot of money. They take a pilot and his daughter hostage and force the pair to take them to Mexico; but the ride has a hitch when one of the crooks decides that he doesn't want to share the money, and parachutes out of the plane with the loot. His partners in crime are soon on his tail, but the story has another twist when it turns out that the field they've jumped into is infested with scarecrows that want to do more than keep the birds off the crops! This film isn't very well known and it's not hard to see why. Scarecrows is very short, running at about seventy minutes when you don't include the credit sequences. The film also feels very low-key, as the focus is more on the atmosphere than anything else, which can leave the film lacking at several intervals. Scarecrows is basically a glorified zombie movie, and pretty much plays out like one as the characters are picked off by their unworldly adversaries. The fact that the entire film takes place in what appears to be real time and in only one location ensures that it benefits from a claustrophobic tension, which benefits a film like this greatly. There isn't a lot of gore here, as the killings don't tend to be very bloodthirsty, and most of the violence takes place off-screen. The killings aren't bad, however, and I was impressed with the way that the film handled the scarecrows' victims after they had been savaged. ------------------------------------- Recommended for Horror Fans! --------------------------- Horror fans will find this to be a feast. --------------------------------- Film Critics give Four Stars to this horror movie --------------The Best Horror Movie of year 1988 ---------------- Try to find Unrated Uncut Restore Version(88mins)!!!

Average customer rating:

Nothing good grows in this garden...
garbage
The Garden Hoe Horror...
-10000000 stars!
garden of the dead

Garden of the Dead
Starring: Duncan McLeod , Lee Frost , John Dennis , Susan Charney , and Jack Driscoll (II)
Director: John Hayes
Manufacturer: Retro Media
ProductGroup: DVD
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ASIN: B000063W58
Release Date: 2002-05-07

Customer Reviews:

Nothing good grows in this garden..........2007-07-03

Being a fan of not only zombie movies but also the weird and obscure, I bought this movie thinking it might be a lost horror gem.
Upon viewing the film I wanted to throw a bowling ball through the television like "Son of Ghoul" does before the movie begins.
Lets just give a run-down on whats really wrong here.
First of all the DVD claims to have an original trailer for the film but instead we get a trailer for a totally different but equally cheesy looking movie called "Grave of the Vampire".
The movie is hosted by a late night creature feature host wannabe named "Son of Ghoul".
Son of Ghoul does a horrible job of reading from cue cards before the movie begins, trying to describe the film.
Then he needlessly has some guy he pulled off the street, throw a bowling ball through a TV set, which was the only exciting thing on the whole DVD to be honest.
Then we come to the movie itself.
Why are there barrels of Formaldahyde all over the prison camp?
The zombies to be get high off this junk and then later on, upon digging an escape route from the camp, they are shot and killed.
Somehow sniffing stuff that preserves dead bodies, can also bring people back from the dead.
They go on a killing spree with garden tools (Scary!) and apparently can be destroyed if a high powered spot light is shone on them.
Bullets cannot stop them, or at least not until it is convenient for the plot.
They try to grab the token damsel in distress who is the girlfriend of one of the inmates and then they suddenly become vulnerable to bullets.
Surprisingly, the zombies speak on occasion.
Saying things like "We must destroy the living" and "Show us the girl".
Wow, spooky!
They stop anyone from escaping by bashing the engine blocks of the vehicles (which happen to be neatly parked in a row) with a pick axe.
In between killing people and running around like idiots, the zombies indulge in their favorite pastime of getting high on formaldahyde fumes.
Im guessing the only way to enjoy this film is to actually get high.
If you really like horrible, low budget trash, then this is the film for you!
The video quality is very poor and looks like it was transfered directly from some old VHS tape.
The make-up effects of the zombies must have took five minutes to create.
There is one funny point in the movie where a spot light is shone on a zombie and alkaselzter bubbles from his mouth.
A hundred thumbs down to this stinker!
I am a fan of the weird and obscure but this one should have been left buried in the garden.

garbage.......2005-06-22

Dont buy , put your money toward something else good. This movie is truly horrible.

The Garden Hoe Horror..........2004-05-28

Every once in awhile, I purchase a movie with absolutely no prior knowledge of the film, not even reading the various reviews that may be posted here. Sometimes I find an unpolished gem, and sometimes I find a road apple...the latter being the case with Garden of the Dead (1972). Directed by John Hayes, who's other credits include The Farmer's Other Daughter (1965), Sweet Trash (1970), All the Lovin' Kinfolk (1970), and Jailbait Babysitter (1978), Garden of the Dead is a no budget zombie movie that failed to evoke nary a scare or a chill in this viewer.

The film takes place in Camp Hoover, a prison/work camp located somewhere in Colorado, or at least that's what the crude sign sez...we see convicts rolling 55 gallon barrels onto a flatbed truck, and based on the stenciled printing on the side of the drums, they all contain formaldehyde. We quickly learn the camp produces the foul smelling stuff, and also that the camp is about to be closed down, with the prisoners and guards to be relocated to different prisons, while the warden will be let go, as, apparently, his style of running things doesn't fit in with the department of corrections idea of how things should be done. I think the thing is the warden is `old school', and the department of corrections, being the progressive institution that they are, is looking towards the future. Anyway, this figures little into the plot of the film, so I am unsure why they wasted time with this point. Anyway, we soon get to hang with the prisoners, as they enjoy a midday break/meal. This prompts a number of prisoners to converge on the formaldehyde distiller, to which they begin huffing the vapors. No, really, they seem to be getting a high off the stuff, and this was pretty funny to watch. The prison guards don't seem to notice the men's absence, which I thought was a little strange as there's about 20 inmates in the prison camp, and about eight of them were hiding behind the shack-like structure housing the distiller. After getting their fill of the vapors, they move a tank next to the structure, which reveals a hole, one that leads to a tunnel. Seems the prisoners have been digging said tunnel in hopes of using it to escape. Later that night, while the prisoners are in the barracks, they begin their escape. I guess they completed the tunnel, and now their plan is to kill a guard, get his gun, follow the tunnel out to a vehicle depot and steal a flatbed truck to aid in their getaway. Everything goes well, that is until the prisoner with the stolen shotgun from the now deceased prison guard trips and fires the shotgun, alerting the other, still-living guards. Well, the jig is up, so to speak, but the escapees proceed with their plans. They pile onto the back of the flatbed, and are soon being pursued by the warden and the guards. The pursuers quickly catch up to the slow flatbed truck, and begin to open fire on the escapees. The truck crashes, and the warden and the guards proceed to shoot all the escape convicts. On returning to the camp, the warden punishes the remaining prisoners for not relating the escape plan, thusly allowing the death of the guard. He the locks these guys up in a makeshift stockade, and tells them that the dead escaped convicts will all be buried in shallow graves. Cut to a scene of the burying of the dead prisoners. Now here's something I didn't know, but apparently inhaling large amounts of formaldehyde vapors causes zombification shortly after the death of the inhaler. As the dead prisoners begin to rise from their graves, they decide the living must die. I guess it's a whole `revenge/the dead hate the living' motif...whatever...soon the once prisoners/now zombies break into the tool locker on the prison truck, steal various garden implements (See the horror of the hoe! See the terror of the trowel! See the barbarity of the bulb planter! Okay, it doesn't always work...) Once the zombies arm, no pun intended, themselves, they begin to make their way back to the prisoner, and the real horror begins...sort of...

Okay, there are zombies in this film, but there is absolutely no consuming of living flesh by these creatures. They basically run around killing various members, mostly prison guards, with axes, hoes, whatever. We really don't get to see any of this clearly, as the last ¾ of the movie takes place at night, and the lighting is poor. The zombies don't actually look half bad, but the level of decomposition displayed through the liberal use of makeup surely doesn't relay the fact that all these men are of the recently deceased. No real scares or horror to be had here, but the one thing I did appreciate was that the makers of the film decided to stick with a short running time (58 minutes), rather than pad out the story with loads of filler and/or stock footage. As far as the actors go, well, there was one recognizable face in character actor Carmen Filpi, whose latter roles mostly consisted of winos, hoboes, and old codgers in general, appearing in films like Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985), Wayne's World (1992), and The Wedding Singer (1998), to name a few.

Retromedia Entertainment provides a print of fairly funky quality here, but it is watchable. Special features include an intro bit by Son of Ghoul, a semi-famous creature feature host from Akron, Ohio. Also included is a theatrical trailer for another film titled Grave of the Vampire (1972), a film that was also directed by John Hayes, the same man who directed this film. I guess if I learned anything from this film, it's that formaldehyde, while not only being highly addictive, can actually bring the dead back to life...sort of...whatever...

Cookieman108

-10000000 stars!.......2003-09-06

Starts off at a prison filled with prisoners and cops. The (prisoners) start dosing up on formaldihyde. Then they make an escape and the cops chase after them and kills them and buries them in the ground. The formaldihyde in their system made them return to life as zombies. They go back to the prison to rage war against the cops with pick axes and shovels. These zombies don't eat flesh, they eat formaldihyde. Then they are melted by flashlights and the movie ends.

This movie is one of the worst zombie films i have ever seen. No person in his right mind would say this movie is great. The movie was only 67 min. long and the plot, the gore, everything about this movie was stupid!

(8 zombies)

most entertaining part: | uh......... yeh! |

garden of the dead.......2003-03-22

This movie was so bad...I had to laugh at my mistake of ordering it. Poor acting, background scenes, the whole movie was what my family refers to as a Class F(fluke) movie. The only good thing about my order was, the movie was received in excellent condition...probably because no one else had watched it! I can hardly believe zombies would be interested in the opposite sex
for any reason...the dead also were shot and killed...again.
My recomendation for the serious zombie enthusiast would be "Resident Evil". If all you want is to spend money and get a laugh "Garden of the Dead", which was for me a waste of my time and money, will definitely be your best bet.

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