Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things

Rating:
Summary: CHILDREN SHOULDNT PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS
Review: ALTHOUGH CONSIDERED A B-MOVIE, ITS A VERY GOOD ONE.THE MOOD OF THIS FILM IS INTENSE. THE ACTING IS OK AND THE SETTING IS PERFECT.THE ZOMBIES ARE GREAT IN THIS ONE! VERY CREEPY MOVIE YOU WONT FORGET.

Rating:
Summary: Classic B-Movie Zombie Flick
Review: After a long day at work, I like to come home and unwind a bit; get a drink, sit back and watch a good flick always sounds good to me. And then there are those nights where I know I don't have much time to unwind, because only a few hours stand between the present and being at work again. So, I compromise with myself. Out of my collection of DVDs, I have a select number that I toss in the DVD player and have no worry about being kept up late by trying to figure out the plot or a characters choices he makes in a film. Not to say that "Children" puts me to sleep, but it's a familiarity to the film that puts me at ease. I know the beginning, I know the middle and I know the end so well, that I don't need to sit up for another hour trying to figure out what happens at the end. Sure, there are times I'll just pop it in to watch it, but, like I said, it's a familiarity to the film.

Years ago, my dad, my brothers and I would spend Saturday afternoons watching Sir Graves Ghastly and the Thriller Double Feature. My love for horror films was born during that time of my life. And, of all the many horror films that I viewed on those Saturday afternoons, "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" has to be one of the films that I looked forward to seeing the most.

Now, years later, I have my DVD collection (along with my VHS collection which I'll never give away), and "Children" has it's special place on my shelf, as it will always have a special place in my heart.

Bob Clark introduces us to his venture into the horror genre as we see a boat manned by Alan (Alan Ormsby) and a group of his theatre actors (his Children), heading towards a small deserted island which just so happens to be the home to a large cemetery (gotta love the street lamps which light the island, too). Children in tow, Alan takes the group to an abandoned house which just so happens to be the setting for another "boarded-up-with-zombies-trying-to-break-in" zombie film. Alan has also brought along his box-o-tricks, his magical cloak, his book-o-spells...and baby's blood to sprinkle on the numerous graves on the island, in hopes that by making a pact with the devil, he'll be able to revive the dead to do his bidding.

Yes, the story was a bit hokey, but it was the fun aspect of the film that pulled it along. Not to mention the Special FX makeup, done by Mr. Ormsby himself (a man who worked alongside FX Maestro, Tom Savini), which add to the already creepy atmosphere. I'd also like to add that "Children" had one of the MOST memorable zombie resurrection scenes EVER shot for the big screen...And, as a zombie conosieur, the dead rising in this film, just sends chills up my spine. It's beautiful

So, with your not-so-beautiful cast, your AWESOME soundtrack score, your flesh peeling FX, all wrapped into one film about the living dead, I have to say that "Children" will always be on my top ten zombie film list.

Thanks, Bob!

Rating:
Summary: ne jouer pas avec les choses morte mes amis
Review: Bon on a acomplie un autre daube dans la collection de Zombie. Bon, film extremement long a commencer , beaucoup de parlage qui n'amène guère quelque chose d'interressant au film , bon on se demande si cé belle et bien un film de Zombie ou une véritable farce. un coup arrivé a la fin ... on peut appercevoir les zombie sortir de leurs tombe, C'ETAIT TEMP !!! et cela ne dure pas tres longtemps , les acteurs se barricade dans la maison, on peut donc savoir de quelle film il est influancer (Night of the living dead) le final est pathétique une pseudo fin 'choc' qui ma fait rire plus que d'autre chose. aucun sang dans ce film , javoue que ca datte de '72 mais ils aurait pu ce forcer , Blood feast date de bien plus long. Bref film a voir une fois et vite oublier apres , je me demande sérieusement pourquoi ce film a atteind le statut de culte.

Rating:
Summary: FUN! FUN! FUN!
Review: I saw this at the theater when it first came out. It was great then and it's still great now. I've read reviews complaining about the picture quality on this DVD but I really don't think it can be much better than it is. It was obviously shot cheap and this is what you get. The mood and the atmosphere that this sets up at the very beginning is genius. The film really delivers at the end. In my opinion there were so many great horror movies made in the early seventies and this is one of them.

Rating:
Summary: CHILDREN SHOULDNT PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS
Review: and not intentionally. A fun flick to watch at least 1 just for sheer idiocy reasons.

Rating:
Summary: See the Unexpected Terror of Rising...Rotten...Filmmaking!
Review: Don't listen to all the hype from the fanatics. The basic story line of this cheap "no-budget" zombie flick (a budget of only $70,000) is shamelessly lifted from George Romero's highly superior NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) released a few years earlier. But wait! There is that old epigram that says plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery, right? Well, sure. But Romero can't possibly be flattered by CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS (1972). Even though the folks that exposed this strip of color celluloid in 1972 may have ripped the IDEA from Romero's black-and-white magnum opus, they certainly didn't do anything too flattering with it.

The movie follows a troupe of hammy hippie thespians as their director drags them off to a Florida island to act out a necromantic ritual. But even though they only PRETEND to raise the dead, the corpses in the island's cemetery don't realize it's only make-believe--the dead bodies crawl from their graves and start looking for human flesh to feed on. The acting troupe eventually gets trapped in an old house--this is a Romero rip-off, remember--as a swarm of pasty-faced zombies try to bust in and crash the party.

Aside from the stolen story ideas--which, by the way, are clumsily reworked--CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS is replete with abysmal acting, amateurish lighting, and even lousier cinematography. Many scenes that are meant to be frightening instead generate unintentional laughter simply because the actors are so inept and unconvincing. And often times it is hard to make out what is really happening on-screen because the lighting is too dark or the film improperly exposed.

That's not to say that the movie doesn't have a few good points. In spite of the low budget, some of the make-up jobs on the zombies are pretty cool. A few of the walking dead look hokey, but several of them look as if they stepped right off the pages of some old E.C. Comics. The sound design and sound FX are ably executed, too, providing a few genuine chills. And rotten writing and awful acting aside, the director does a pretty good job with what he has to work with. Most scenes are prudently tight, and the action is paced in a way that keeps things from getting too boring. (The good direction isn't too surprising when considering that director Bob "Benjamin" Clark will move on to helm much better films like the genre flick BLACK CHRISTMAS in 1974, teen favorite PORKY'S in 1982, and the popular Yuletide comedy A CHRISTMAS STORY in 1983.)

In short, CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS is a dull, poorly executed rip-off of a much better film. The overall movie gets a 1-star rating, while the make-up work, sound work, and the direction deserve, for the most part, 4 stars. The DVD from VCI isn't anything to write home about, though. Other than a (non-anamorphic) widescreen transfer of the uncut version, there are no real extras. For an excessively bad film like this, extras like behind-the-scenes featurettes or actor interviews are often more interesting and entertaining than the film proper and thus make the DVD worth the purchase--for non-fanatics, anyway. The DVD, therefore, gets 1 star. This means that the average rating for the CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS disc is 2 stars.

If you wanna watch truly scary--and sometimes deliberately funny--dead things, skip this film and get the George Romero DEAD trilogy instead.