Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things

"Film strives for yucks, frequently succeeds. A late night fave, sporting some excellent dead rising from their graves scenes as well as a selection of groovy fashions." Cult Pics & Trash Flicks

"Campy, gory, sick and funny in about equal doses," Nigel Burrell. Is It Uncut.

There are many bad reviews written about this film that include its bad points, but here I'll focus on some of its merits…

Tongue in cheek, little slapstick, creepy cemetery sequences by filmmakers with potential to prolong their careers, Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things is a bad film, but a good bad film. Obviously ripping-off Night of the Living Dead ("That's not very original, Anya."), but perhaps inspiring The Evil Dead that would also feature a group of foolish kids awaking evil forces with the aid of an old book. Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things was directed by Bob Clark when he worked with cult icon, Ormsby. Together they also collaborated on the moody, ‘Monkey's Paw' inspired Dead of Night (Deathdream). After co-directing Deranged with his co-star of Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things, Jeff Gillen, Ormsby went on to screenplay the alluring Cat People ('82) and silly Popcorn ('91). Before Clark moved on to comedies like A Christmas Story and Porkies, he directed the excellent Black Christmas ('74) and the interesting Murder by Decree ('79).

The obnoxious director, Alan (played by Ormsby himself), threatens his group of actors with unemployment unless they accompany him to a deserted island to perform some satanic rituals. After two thirds of the film, by now the cast have exhumed a corpse and attempted talking each other to death, incidents reach a peak as one of the women has a sudden break down (cue some overacting). The actors decide they've had enough and demand to leave the island immediately. It's too late to escape though, at this point you find yourself wondering if the film even feature the zombies promised in the title. The flesh hungry living dead close in on them and we're treated to the old boarding up the windows and doors routine and defending themselves from the growing horde of creatures outside.

Those merits I spoke of earlier? In my opinion, a true fan of old horror cannot truly hate this film. This predates Carpenter, Hooper, Craven and most other popular genre directors of today. It maybe difficult, but if you try overcoming the evident low budget, squinting to see what's happening past the abysmal lighting and photography and the laughable dialogue, then you'd probably enjoy the film a lot more. Ormsby himself has said that he's barely able watch Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things anymore as he hates himself acting in it, but admits that it does have some appealing attraction, hence the cult following.

This is how they should do horror movies nowadays. This one is not as good as other zombie movies like "Dawn Of The Dead" or "Zombie Flesheaters" but it has it´s potential. A group of people come to a remote island and start to do satanic rituals to wake up the dead. The whole satanic ritual thing seems to fail but who knows what awaits them. The whole movie is dark and scary. This is how i would like to see movies being made today. What about the ending??? Yessssssss i like it very much. He he he he.........

Bob Clark was always more interested in comedy, even when making horror. The problem has always been, for me at least, that his sense of humor was too stupid and infantile to ever be funny, or even believable when coming from the mouth of anybody over the age of ten. And so in 'Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things' we have a bunch of grown adults behaving like elementary school children – pouting, whining, giggling and taunting their way from one pointless scene to another. Though the characters' childishness is supposed to be a plot point (hence the title), it's so tedious, repetitive and irritating as to make the first 2/3 of the movie almost unwatchable. Writer Alan Ormsby, badly miscast as the lead character, delivers one of the most embarrassing and cringeworthy performances I've ever seen. And don't get me started on the ridiculous caricatures of two gay men that pop up half way through.

It's worth sitting through all the Scooby Doo bullsh*t for a final act that seems like it was plucked from another, and far superior, movie. Sure, it's a complete rip-off of 'Night of the Living Dead', with everyone trapped in a house under siege by the undead hoards, but after such an appalling first hour, even blatant plagiarism is a welcome relief. But anyone expecting Tom Savini-style blood and guts will be sorely disappointed – 'Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things' is rated PG for a reason.

The hand-held camera-work is a nice touch, and the dark and grainy film stock lends a certain low-fi analogue appeal, but such aesthetic niceties are rendered redundant thanks to Orsmby's incompetence as both a writer and actor. There are a couple of scenes that are genuinely arresting – the sight of the undead scrambling out of their graves to the accompaniment of a raucous ambient industrial soundtrack works well, and one of the final shots, of zombies tumbling in to an upstairs bedroom in slow motion has a certain raw and gritty realism about it.

'Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things' is an ultra low-budget, played-for-laughs, light-hearted zombie flick whose great final act is not compensation enough for an hour of risible and tedious nonsense. But maybe I'm missing the point. Maybe Clark intended this to be the first ever zombie movie for kids. As such, it may be of great value as a preschool introduction to the genre before advancing to better examples.

A theatre troupe is misled by their crackpot leader (Alan Ormsby) to spend the night on an infamous isle off the coast of Miami known for its cemetery of outcast criminals. There he tries his hand at raising the dead using a grimoire.

"Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things" (1972) is a horror indie by Bob Clark (director/writer) & Ormsby (writer) inspired by "Night of the Living Dead" (1968). It only cost $70,000 (about $45,000 less than "Night"), but the spooky atmosphere is effective (with eerie sounds for the soundtrack rather than conventional music), the zombie make-up is well done and the amusing characters were written & performed with personality and spunk.

Brunette Jane Daly stands out in the female department as Terry (the girl with the yellow shirt) while Anya Ormsby is reminiscent of Parker Posey as the spiritually sensitive lass (she was married to Alan at the time of shooting). Meanwhile Valerie Mamches is entertaining as the quasi-Gypsy woman.

While watching I couldn't help think of Steve Gerber's Man-Thing comics from 1973-1975. The location and vibe are similar, just without a swamp monster. He was obviously influenced by this cult flick.

The film runs 1 hour, 27 minutes, and was shot in the Coconut Grove area of Miami.

GRADE: B-

For the hardcore B-horror movie junkie, I thought I'd pass along some interesting trivia related to this movies promotional scheme. This flick came to my town on the drive-in circuit and somehow managed to talk several area restaurants into offering a special menu for kids (!) that hawked the movie and simultaneously grossed out parents. The menu featured the individual restaurants usual fair, but with new titles... blood shake.. flesh strips (french fries)... brain delight (jello). The half rotten skull visage on the cover of the menu was enough to send most parents into fits. I wish I had kept it. Talk about a collectible! It's a great film, though. Enough tongue in cheek to make its sick theme tolerable. That menu made it impossible for me to see it. Had to wait until I found it on video many years later.