| Overview: | Starring Andy Warhol superstar Joe Dallesandro in his first non-Warhol role and Katherine Houghton ("Guess Who's Coming To Dinner"), "The Gardener" is a flowery mix of 70s mod-art film, grindhouse horror and Italian giallo released theatrically in an abbreviated form as "Seeds Of Evil".
Ellen (Houghton) and her husband John (James Congdon; "The Left Handed Gun") have a lovely home in Costa Rica. Ellen spends her days gossiping with her best friend, Helena (Rita Gam; "No Exit", "Klute"). John has a good job, plays golf, and together they host expensive costume parties. All their little upper-class home is missing is a nice garden. Enter the mysterious and handsome Carl (Dallesandro), who has a green thumb and little to say. Shirtless and shoeless, with his long hair and chest bursting with muscles, Carl has the power to make any plant thrive--as well as any woman.
Ignoring the warnings of her cook (whose Voodoo knowledge alerts her to Carl's "unnatural" way with plants), Ellen falls under the sexy and controlling gaze of her new Gardener, as do Helena and Ellen's other women friends. Soon Ellen discovers that her Gardener may be planting his own "seeds of evil."
Fifteen years before William Friedkin (director of "The Exorcist") planted "The Guardian", James H. Kay's "The Gardener" came to theaters with its fanciful mix of magic flowers, gruesome murder sequences (one nasty one involving a garden scythe), a butt-naked Dallesandro, and psychedelic sets (gotta' love those lamp shades), all grooving to a truly '70s soundtrack by composer Marc Fredericks.
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