Review of Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (1972) by Steve M — 09 May 2007
A practical joke-loving, hippie film director (Ormsby) travels with his cast and crew to an island cemetary to shoot his new movie. When one of Alan's gags go awry, and graves are desecrated, the corpses on the island reanimate... and they're hungry for the flesh of the living!
"Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things" is a sub-standard zombie flick. It has a few scary moments, but in general it's badly acted, badly paced, and festooned with bad make-up and gore effects.
There is are interesting kernals of ideas in the script--the careless attitude that is on display regarding the living, the dead, and all things sacred stands as an interesting commentary on the filmmaking business--but they are barely visible due to the amateurish script and bad acting. (The best actor of the bunch is Ormsby, and even he seems like his just running lines most of the time. The rest of it seems like he's doing a bad parody of John Carradine.).
Lovers of the "Return of the Living Dead" may find something here to appreciate--and a distribution company thought the same, so when the film was re-released it got a title that called that series to mind--but the rest should probably take a pass on this one.
Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (aka "Revenge of the Living Dead" and "Things from the Dead".
Starring: Alan Ormsby.
Director: Bob Clark.
This review of Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (1972) was written by Steve M on 09 May 2007.
Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things has generally received mixed reviews.
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