Review of Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (1972) by John K — 18 Mar 2011
Bob Clark (A Christmas Story & Porky's) wanted to try his hand at the newly budding zombie movie craze that George Romero started with Night of the Living Dead. The result was nothing more than disastrous. Hey, at least the guy tried.
Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things is an early seventies gore film, that deals with zombies without actually ever muttering the zed word. For an early horror movie they hit all of the main points. However, this movie suffers from being poorly written and horribly acted. The make-up is fair, but at times really lags and serves as the catalyst for most of the cheapness. In other words this movie is truly independent.
The film is about a theater troupe that comes to a remote cemetery island to perform rituals to raise the dead. Things go awry when the dead actually does raise up and come after the group. The movie is really ridiculous. It is hard for me to put into words just what I actually think, but I know that I was unamused the entire film. It seemed stale even though this was at the beginning of the craze. How did they accomplish that?
The scares in the movie are few and far between, it is rare that you actually jump. I think that the cold opening is the only really scary part of the film, and that's just because of the loudness. The movie really wains at times. There are long drawn out pieces to this movie that just keep going. This movie is perfect for hardcore zombie fans, but it is going to be incredibly dull for casual horror movie watchers.
I peed in my pants! - Jeff.
Rating: 4 of 10.
S!D.
This review of Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (1972) was written by John K on 18 Mar 2011.
Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things has generally received mixed reviews.
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