Don't Go Near the Park

I caught this (though not the whole film) on The Horror Channel (UK), and last month it came out on DVD. I got myself a copy (since it was cheap) to mock review for my upcoming website.

This movie is regarded by some to be the "best bad movie of all time".

The plot? Well, it's an incoherent mess, but here goes... *deep breath* Two cannibal people, one male one female, from a crazy tribe of cannibals in the past got in trouble so an old lady who thinks she's in charge cursed them. The curse causes them to live forever as immortals but constantly age, but they can retain their youth by every certain number of years eating the insides of a virgin who happens to be the guy's daughter, or something like that. So the guy gets married and raises a daughter called Bonnie. And then she one day runs away to the park which is like abandoned and lives in this abandoned house with an old lady (who is obviously the female cannibal), a little kid who swears, and a guy who they call 'cowboy'. The two cannibals want to do some ritual on Bonnie and eat her guts. WHAT WILL SHE DO?!!

The film does feature Linnea Quigely in her first ever role, and yes, she gets her bits out. Though obviously not quite as much as in Return of the Living Dead! Most of the actors do a rubbish job, though, and the camera-work, directing and effects are all absurdly bad for it's time - after the first time I watched it I was stunned to find out it was an early 80's flick, it barely passes as an early 70's low budget horror! - and absurd pointless ideas just appear now and then which will just get you laughing.

Oh and did I mention the SUPER CANNIBAL LASER EYES? That's right, when somebody ticks them off they can use their SUPER CANNIBAL LASER EYES on them. Doesn't kill them. Just makes them hurt a little, apparently.

The whole thing feels like something some students might make, only I doubt even students would include SUPER CANNIBAL LASER EYES.

Top notch if you want to see a really bad movie and laugh. If on the other hand you are after a decent horror movie, I would recommend that you DON'T GO NEAR THE DVD.

I have a certain prejudice for this cheapie because it was the only film i saw at a drive-in. I was a kid and i saw this small ad for the film showing at the drive-in and i asked my dad if he could take me the following night to see it. This is in Austin,Texas on Saturday, July 3. During that afternoon we took a boat ride close to where Hippie Hollow is. Hippie Hollow is a retreat where nudists hang out. Imagine my shock as a young boy seeing nudists in boats and getting a distant view of completely nude women! As we finished our trip i had convinced my dad to take me. He told a friend who accompanied us, "Last night we watched WOLFEN on HBO. This movie had a head come off...,i don't see how DON'T GO NEAR THE PARK could be any worse". That evening my dad saw one of the worst films he ever saw! I was bored,so i strolled along the pavement for a few minutes. Before, i was worried i was going to be scarred. When i got back to my dad's truck, he asked, "Are you scarred?" I replied i wasn't and when i asked him the same thing,he retorted "Nope". Afterwards,i was greatly disappointed. As few of you who've seen the film know, it is an ultra low-budget,unsavory schlock fest. However, as i approached adulthood,i had a dream this was showing on my local station in the daytime! This made me want to take a look at this film again. It was a nightmare to find and i only saw a videocassette of this in a Kingsville videostore! I rented it and saw it at a friend's house. I was caught off-guard that Lineau Quigly was in it! Last year i looked for an Amazon copy and they didn't have one. For some reason i stumbled on another site and it had a rare DVD! I purchased it. I now have this childhood memory on DVD!

I read the warnings online. Despite them, I stupidly went out and rented this piece of garbage. Wow. I've been let-down by a movie before, but never by a movie I had no expectations for anyway. This was just bad. First of all, the intro takes place "12,000 years ago"... which would make the characters 10,000 years older than Christ, but they speak VERY good American English... wow. THAT'S an impressive feat, almost as impressive as going on a 12,000 year-long murdering spree and not being caught once. Another impressive feat would have to be the awesome special effects they used to show aging... which were the exact same effects used in The Wolf Man almost 40 years prior to this. Incredible. [sarcasm]

Yes folks, this movie includes it all: bad acting, stupid effects, weak plot, and best of all, two 12,000 year old murderers, everything. The only thing this movie has going for it, in my opinion, is that it's hard to find.

Our discomposed little comic-book horror tale begins in a cave thousands of years ago, as an old hag curses her evil son and daughter. Flash to modern times(okay, the late 70s...whatever), and the ancient siblings prowl the land looking for children to slaughter as a sinister means of self-preservation.

Performances are true-to-type crap, adding deepened injury to the already suffering DON'T GO NEAR THE PARK, a sloppy bottom feeder of a film which does manage to chalk-up a few lively moments(some pretty nasty gore, specifically), as well as a laughably overenthusiastic non-ending which leaves this lemon wide-open for a sequel you'd better believe you'll never live to see.

A failure, certainly, but a failure that a few may find endearing in a disowned hungry kitten sort of way. Female lead Tammy Taylor appeared in the amazing MALIBU HIGH the same year, and co-star Meeno Peluce later starred on TV's VOYAGERS with the ill-fated Jon-Erik Hexum.

4/10

You have to give this film a little bit of credit for the fact that it doesn't religiously follow the same old slasher plot line; but then most of this credit has to be taken away when you consider how rubbish the film is. Don't Go Near the Park is one of the films included on the Video Nasty list, but unfortunately this is one of the films that really isn't all that gory. The film features a few bloody scenes (one that turns up before the credits), but they all look so fake that they're impossible to really take seriously. The plot, which opens centuries in the past, takes influence from the vampire sub-genre, and follows a pair of siblings who find themselves doomed to walk the Earth for all eternity after abusing their tribe's tradition for eternal youth. They are given one chance to break this curse, however, as they must sacrifice a virgin (who is also a descendant from the tribe) in return for their souls at a certain point during the lunar cycle. This leads the male of the duo to marry the first young woman he bumps into, and this means that their daughter is the one who must be sacrificed...

Of course, this plot is silly and is never going to lead to a great film; but I really do think that if this had better production values, it could have been a decent little flick. The script includes some good ideas, and the plot doesn't play out exactly as you'd expect it to; although it does suffer from a load of ridiculous happenings and coincidences. The acting is rubbish, and sees Tamara Taylor give a very irritating performance in the lead role. Aldo Ray and Meeno Peluce are ineffective in their roles, and the only standout performance in the film comes from Linnea Quigley, although her part doesn't allow her do much, and is only memorable because she would go on to make quite an impression in several other eighties horror films. The title of the movie gives you the notion that the film is another exploitation flick along the same lines of The Last House on the Left or Don't Go in the Woods, and I can see this leading to annoyance for people who weren't expecting a fantasy horror movie. On the whole, this really isn't a very good film - but it's more imaginative than a lot of its ilk, and while I won't see it again; I've got to admit that I did rather enjoy watching it.