Class Action Park

This was a really interesting one. The topic was like a gold mine, but the way the doc was set up was tacky. I really feel bad for the mom featured. This was basically the justice she gets after the newspapers took Gene's side. Instead her story was sandwiched by people relishing in the nostalgia. For a doc called "Class Action Park" they barely focused on the lawsuits and deaths. Just kinda amateur all in all.

Being the same age as the guy who did a lot of the talking, I do remember those "good ole days" (mine were spent at Six Flags personally) but I felt that they spent a lot of time kind of glorifying the owner who seemed like a total tool! There is nothing awesome about being a sneaky prick who doesn't care if people died. Scrapes and "the orange spray" I can ride with that. Missing teeth, drowning, concussions, electrocution, drowning...no. That should not be happening and should not be a something that you should expect when you go to have fun. Like why? I didn't know who Gene was until today and I am just so glad I've never met anyone like him. I don't think I'd even be honored to be related to the guy! Yeah he was innovative and a risk taker, but do that shiz without risking people's lives! That is nothing to be proud of At ALL! I enjoyed it for what it was, but I am unsettled. To me he is a serial killer in disguise.

Back in 1990, I was taking a bunch of summer camp kids on a day trip to Action Park. Being from the UK, I'd never heard of the place or even the concept of a waterpark. It didn't take me long to discover that Action Park was possibly the greatest amusement park on the planet. I was so in love with it that at the end of summer camp, I drove back down there and landed a job as a lifeguard, which by all accounts wasn't a difficult feat.

So, yes, this documentary was an immense nostalgia trip for me and when I heard rumors and later saw early previews, I became incredibly excited for the release. My only fear was that it would disappoint and fall flat, as these things so often do after you've built them up in your mind and romanticized the memories.

Fortunately, my fears were completely unfounded. This documentary absolutely nails it, from the content to the commentary, from the crazy risk of the rides to the ultimate reward of immeasureable fun. Chris Gethard provides a fun, familiar and accurate historical narrative blended with contemporary perspective, which asks in hindsight, how this was allowed to go on for so long!? Other talking heads with first hand experience enrich the story with extraordinary tales of their own. And there's plenty of archive video footage to send you right back to the 80s and 90s.

If you weren't "lucky" enough to be embedded in this wacky world, you'd be forgiven for thinking a pinch of salt is required when listening to some of the anecdotes but from my own time working at the resort over the course of several seasons, I can testify to the complete credibility of the Action Park story as presented here. Working on the Tarzan swing, I'd need to rescue ten or more kids a day who despite the warnings, "the water is ice cold... if you're not an excellent swimmer, do not attempt this ride", would happily risk death and launch themselves into the abyss. Then there were the others who were too scared to let go and would swing back into the platform.

My favorite quote that sums up the entire film is "this was the last decade of unsupervised fun for kids". There is inevitable tragedy in this account of a legendary waterpark that simply couldn't exist in given today's standards for safety. For a "survivor" like myself, it raises the philosophical question, "Sure, we live in a safer world but at what cost"?

From the late 1970s to the mid 1990s, entrepreneur Gene Mulvilhill ran his own water park in Vernon, New Jersey called "Action Park". Often known as the most dangerous water park in North America, the park was known for its casualties as it was known for its bizarrely constructed rides. It was so controversial that it led to a documentary called "Class Action Park", which details the history before the park was even opened, its runtime, and the aftermath. Described mostly from the people who either attended or worked at the park, this might be one of the more fascinating amusement park documentaries out there.

As this park was known for its recklessness, the documentary details how much the owners utilized that as a gimmick, from the insanely designed rides injuring attendees to even the employees joining in on the reckless behavior. All of this was because "uncle Gene" was fulfilling his dream of creating his own fun-filled utopia without any rules. Many of his frankly crooked schemes would include engineering rides that sometimes wouldn't even make it past the testing phase, daring kids to ride these unsafe rides with money, and not even reporting on any action no matter how deadly. And yet, all this mayhem was what drove people to the park given how much freedom they had around the parks in the first place; everyone interviewed in the documentary has a story to last a lifetime. Probably the more fascinating stories come from the former employees, who were mostly dumb juvenile teenagers with little concern for morality and would spend their time drinking and partying more than anything. If that lifestyle doesn't sum up teen life in the 80s, let alone in New Jersey, I don't know what does.

In terms of filmmaking, a good chunk of the footage is older stock material of the park itself, which helps put into context just how crazy the park really was in terms of its lack of rules or unguaranteed safety. Considering a lot of the attendees were the youth or young adults, one could almost cringe at the sight of these people going around these parks despite not caring for their overall safety. In addition, some of the more painful slapstick moments are shown in animated form, which only adds to how cartoony a lot of the antics behind this park really were. In a way, the documentary is both a recap of the general events that went on in the park's runtime, and an 80s teen movie meets a gritty horror movie. Two of the interviewees who went to the park, comedian Chris Gethard and actress Alison Becker, even pointed out how much the Jersey-bravado motivated the people wanting to get hurt for fun on the ludicrous rides. But even then, they got to enjoy the rides in hindsight, compared to people who actually died at the park, which would become the park's ultimate downfall.

So in the end, not only is Class Action Park an intriguing documentary that showcases the fascination nostalgia can bring back to an adult, but it's also a reminder of how what you once thought was fun was really more of a miracle you even survived such a wacky ordeal. It's ok if some things are just left as a memory, because there's no way you'd want to revisit near death anytime soon. If you're still on board to check this documentary out, it's on HBO Max just waiting for you. It may make you cringe, it may make you feel unsettled, but it will never stop shocking you, like the park did to people for 18 long years.

The underlying tone of this documentary is summed up in "it's funny, but like not". The first hand stories told are so wild they almost seen unbelievable. A really captivating documentary that's well put together in both footage and interviews.