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- Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things - US DVD -

Tagline:
You're Invited To Orville's "Coming-Out" Party...It'll Be A Scream...YOURS!!!

Experience the unexpected terror of rising rotting flesh...

Synopsis:
A group of six young people (three men and three women) from a theater company visit 
a burial island, with the hopes of digging up a corpse to use it as part of an acting 
project. They stay in the caretaker's cabin beside the cemetery. Their leader is 'Alan,' 
an overly-eccentric actor and pervert, who is disliked by all the others. 'Alan' tells 
them that the caretaker is in an asylum for killing his wife and two children. The next 
caretaker hung himself. He goes on to say that the island's been deserted for two years.
'Alan' starts out just playing with them but then he tries to perform satanic rites 
from an ancient book to raise the dead. When it fails, they ridicule and mock him. 
They then take a real dug up corpse and play with him. Without warning, the dead start 
rising from their graves and attack their cabin. The ending leaves us with many 
possibilities.

Story/plot:
The story's fairly simple: a group of young people fool around with rites to raise the 
dead. Sounds simple? 
It is. But there's an underlying uniqueness to it. I enjoyed it more than I thought I 
would. Don't expect Shakespeare.

Atmosphere:
This is one of the film's strong points. It's shot at night, on the dark and secluded 
island. Not much can be seen beyond the immediate camera view, nothing, that is,
 besides utter and total darkness. It constantly begs the question: what is out there 
and do we care to find out? 
There's several spooky looking trees, a cemetery, a deserted cabin, eerie sounds. I felt
it very similar to the atmosphere created by "The Evil Dead", "Night of the Living Dead" 
and "Carnival of Souls."

Cast/characters:
Alan Ormsby plays 'Alan,' the overly-eccentric "director" of the theater company with 
him on the island. He has an air of upper-class-ness but it's mostly an act of arrogance 
to try to prove he's better than everyone else. This causes great animosity with the others. 
He also makes unwanted vocal advances on the women which only adds to his dislike by them. 
While the group mocks and belittles him, they still follow his leadership as they think he 
can get them good acting roles in the future. Underneath his arrogant guise, he's seems 
likeable to an extent. 
Alan Ormsby does a great job in his role. He portrays his cockiness to an extent that 
you want to choke him but not enough to kill him. He's eccentric and colorful. His 
enunciation and diction sounds like he did do stage acting a bit. He's written and 
produced or directed such films as "Deranged," "Porky's II," "Cat People" and "The 
Substitute." He's also been a writer on "Nash Bridges" and "The District."
Valerie Mamches plays 'Val,' the most outspoken girl of the group. She's sort gypsy-like 
because in one scene she chants the rites well. I don't know if she was meant to be a 
gypsy or a witch or whether or not she was just mocking 'Alan.' Either way she added 
a great sarcasm to the story.
Jeff Gillen plays 'Jeff,' a heavy set man who is slightly outspoken at times. He is 
likeable. 
Anya Ormsby plays 'Anya,' a psychic girl among the group. She's soft-spoken and says 
she thinks bad things are about to happen. Again, she adds another level of color 
and an air of mystery to this film. She does well with her role.
Paul Cronin plays 'Paul,' a low-key character who doesn't stand out much at all. 
He gets pushed around pretty easily.
Jane Daly plays 'Terry,' the strong-willed girlfriend to 'Jeff.' 'Alan' makes advances 
on her which she promptly retorts.
Robert Philip plays 'Emerson' and Roy Engleman plays 'Roy.' They're two of 'Alan's' 
friends who help him play a trick on 'Alan's' group.
Alecs Baird plays the caretaker who's tied up to a tree by two of 'Alan's' friends 
so that they can play a trick on 'Alan's' group.
Seth Sklarey plays 'Orville Dunworth,' the corpse the group plays with.
Director Bob Clark has worked on other films such a "Deathdream" (1974), "Black 
Christmas" (1974) - he was also the prowler/phone voice, "Porky's" (1982), "A 
Christmas Story" (1983) and "Porky's II" (1983).

Cinematography:
Don't expect high-quality film. It's a bit faded and shot at night with plenty of 
dark shadowy areas. Rather than detracting from the film, it adds a bit of charm to 
this low-budget project. Without this, it wouldn't been half as good as it is.

FX, sound, etc.:
The FX are pretty good for a low-budget film from the early 70's. The zombie make-up 
is the best part of the film! They are some of the best zombies I've seen. They'd 
be perfect for "Night of the Living Dead" and certainly better than the original 
"Dawn of the Dead" (move over Savinni!). Now not all of the zombies are great but 
there's two or three that stand out. Just try to find creepier looking zombies!
The sound is pretty good. There's almost a constant sound of chirping crickets, owl, 
and water. It certainly adds to the atmosphere immensely.

Final Thoughts:
Give this film a chance. Sure it's low-budget, sure the acting isn't great and 
sure it's not the greatest effects. But there's something special about it. 
It's no "The Evil Dead" or "Night of the Living Dead" but it's not bad. Actually, 
the ending could possibly fit into Romero's "Dead" series of movies as a pre-cursor 
to "NOTLD" with another explanation to how the zombies were first resurrected. 
Parts of it seem to be very similar to "The Evil Dead" which was produced nearly 
a decade later.

DVD Features:
Chapter Stops, Trailer, Bios and Photos. 

3/4 Stars

Reviewed By Wolf By Night

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