PLOT: A glimpse into the life of the wealthy and devout Eden family, who enjoy helping people get bloody vengeance at their “eye for an eye” parties.
REVIEW: Director Marcel Walz and screenwriter Joe Knetter have collaborated multiple times over the years, and the results that viewers have seen so far have been stalker / slasher movies that were soaked in colorful lighting: Blind, its sequel Pretty Boy, and That’s a Wrap. Now, Walz and Knetter are back with a horror movie with a very different style and approach. Their latest collaboration, Garden of Eden, does still have its colorful moments, but the fun slasher tone has been set aside. Instead, this movie comes off like a relentless assault on each and every viewer, as it goes hard in its attempt to be as dark, disturbing, and disgusting as possible.
The color that’s likely to stick with viewers the most, aside from the red of all the blood that gets spilled, is white. The story gives us a look into several months in the lives of the wealthy Eden family, who are so devoutly Christian that they’re planning to build a church on a plot of land they own in the desert. They like to wear white outfits, reflecting how pure they believe their own souls are. And, quite frequently, they hold costume parties where they accept donations and hand out boxes to attendees. At every party, one specially chosen person will open their box to find that it holds the key to their fondest dream – and in every instance, their fondest dream is get violent vengeance on someone, who they will be allowed to torture and kill in the cellar of the Eden family home. Which was, of course, built on consecrated ground.
Walz and Knetter push boundaries and break taboos throughout the movie, filling it with every sort of detestable character they could come up with. There’s a rapist, a gay basher, a pedophile, a child-molesting priest, a fetus flusher. And they all meet violent ends from people who often seem to get way too much enjoyment out of the bloody act. Some of them even get a sexual thrill out of it all. Garden of Eden is a movie of excess, from how far it goes with its gross-out elements to how long it is. It has the ridiculous running time of 127 minutes, which is probably around 30 minutes longer than a movie of this sort really should be, and much of that running time is taken up by a series of torture / murder sequences. Did you think the “torture porn” trend had come to an end? Garden of Eden is here to make you think again. The Edens and their pals go so far with the torture, there’s even a scenario that’s very reminiscent of a Hellraiser movie, hooked chains and all. Then a fishing pole gets involved.
Between its appalling moments (and sometimes during), the movie does feature some solid acting performances. The Eden family is brought to life by Sarah Polednak as Dominique, the daughter who doesn’t enjoy the “eye for an eye” events as much as the rest of the Edens do; Sarah French as Dominique, the daughter who finds the events to be the only really enjoyable part of life and has to pop pills to get through the rest of her days; Monique Parent as mother Eloise, who has spent more than thirty years with family patriarch Matheo – who, as the movie goes on, becomes quite envious of the womanhood of his wife and others around them. Matheo is played by Robert Rusler, who’s best known for playing the ill-fated friend Grady in A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge. He has many other credits to his name, but if you haven’t seen much of him since that 1985 Freddy movie, you might be surprised to see just how strong his performance in this movie is forty years later.
Outside of the Eden family, we get appearances from the likes of, among others, genre regulars Gigi Gustin and Sarah Nicklin, both of whom have intense emotional moments, as well as Dazelle Yvette as a zoning inspector who has some antagonistic exchanges with Matheo.
Garden of Eden is not an easy movie to watch. It’s not pleasant at all and it goes on for way too long, but it’s not without its merits, especially in the acting department. (And the special effects department, with veteran FX artist Vincent J. Guastini and his crew providing all of the gross stuff.) This is not the sort of movie I enjoy watching at all, but I can’t write it off entirely. If you’re ever in the mood to spend a couple of hours being confronted by some of the darkest things about the world while being disturbed and disgusted, this movie is out there, waiting to give you just that sort of experience.
Garden of Eden is available on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital.
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