Seeds of Evil (1975)

User Rating:

3.6/10   

Director:

James H. Kay

Writer:

James H. Kay (writer)

Release Date:

October 1975 (USA)

Genre:

Horror

Tagline:

Garden of LOVE... Garden of DEATH, He Plants the Seeds of Evil

Plot:

A sinister landscaper turns into a tree and learns to communicate with his fellow plants.

Plot Keywords:

Plant | Good Versus Evil | Nudity | Demon | Magic

Cast

Katharine Houghton	...	Ellen Bennett
Joe Dallesandro	...	Carl, the Gardener
Rita Gam	...	Helena Boardman
James Congdon	...	John Bennett
Anne Meacham
Teodorina Bello
Ivan Rodriguez	...	Max
Esther Mari	...	Rosa
Roberto Negron	...	Ralph
Hal Lasky	...	Fred Burrows
Cass Fry	...	Jinny
Robert Yoh	...	Robby
Tanny McDonald	...	Mrs. Burrows
Katherine De Beer	...	Gladys Stone
Orlando Rodriguez	...	Mr. Garcia

Also Known As:

Garden of Death (USA) (new title)
The Gardener

Runtime:

86 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (TVC)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Iceland:16 | Norway:18 (video premiere) | USA:R | West Germany:18

Filming Locations:

Puerto Rico

Trivia:

The Chinese straw hat that Katharine Houghton wears in one scene was worn as a homage to Houghton's aunt, the great Katharine Hepburn. Hepburn wore a similar hat in the film Dragon Seed (1944).

Movie Connections:

Featured in Planting the Seeds of Evil (2006) (V)

How many green thumbs down does this get?

An evil gardener that grows exotic plants that sort of kill people? I guess that's not a bad idea for a horror movie, although while this is not a terrible movie, it's not the best I've ever seen. In the beginning a woman in the hospital dies from a plant that's brought to her room....maybe she was allergic? If so it was a pretty extreme reaction. Fast forward a bit to the home of this woman, after her funeral, and we have this gardener that is going to be dismissed because he's no longer needed, and this young woman is enthralled by the plants he grows and begs her husband to hire him. This would be Joe Dallesandro, of course, who has done an admirable job of plowing furrows and planting seeds in most other films I've seen him in. Now when he's hired the garden at this house begins to change rapidly, and the housekeepers think the man is evil because those flowers don't grow around here or it's not their time to bloom. The woman's husband becomes increasingly agitated because every time he gets near these plants or flowers he gets cut. Of course he does, he's not an object of desire. This sort of goes on for a while with strange events and such until the woman figures out she has something on her hands she doesn't really want, and upon investigating former employers of this gardener she finds that most always, someone died or went a little funny in the head. Of course, Dallesandro is not what he seems, etc. etc. This is a strange little film, made in Puerto Rico so everything is green and lush. I guess it's not the greatest and of course I'd have handled the ending a bit differently but it's also not the worst film I've seen and is fine if you like weird 70's horror. It's not terribly explicit or gory, and the DVD claims it's "uncensored", well, I have to wonder exactly what was censored. Anyway, 7 out of 10, not for everyone but some may like it.