The Amusement Park

This is an educational film about elder abuse shot by Romero in 1973 (early in his career) and not released until a couple of years ago. After seeing it, it's obvious why the film was shelved: it's a pure nightmarish trip, original and fresh, and very educational, but clearly not in the conventional way. Romero has in his career, until the early 80s, a maverick style of filming: very independent, rough and dirty, close to documentalists like Frederick Wiseman, and this is a great almost lost example of that period.

An old geezer wanders around an amusement park for 50 minutes. There's something about it that feels hypnotic and intriguing though. Many of Romero's directorial flourishes and styles are rough and recognisable here, and there's a Horror/Nightmarish vibe to the whole thing. That being said, I kind of needed more from it to give it higher than an alright watch. Not a bad little lost project though, and there's at least a purpose to the whole picture.

5.5/10.

The topic of elderly people being mistreated in Western society is a perfectly noble one to cover in film. That doesn't exempt filmmakers from providing a story though, or character development of any kind. There's essentially zero of either in The Amusement Park, a "lost film" from the late George Romero that I'd wager is getting praised by critics because of context more than anything.

There isn't much of a film here. Our main character orates to the camera for a few minutes at the beginning, explaining just how poorly seniors are treated. Then for the next 45 odd minutes, seniors are treated poorly at an amusement park. The film plays like a not-particularly-good colourized episode of the Twilight Zone, or perhaps more accurately The Ray Bradbury Theatre.

Was excited for this based on the hype, but sadly it proved little more than a mildly curious historical novelty. Heck of a poster though.

When I first heard George Romero had squirreled away this movie where it couldn't be viewed my first thought was that it was probably awful. In hindsight, this was an understatement.

The Amusement Park comes across as an extended student film that tries to be clever but winds up being both predictable and dull. It doesn't help that the film's introduction basically tells you what you're about to see, making the viewing experience somewhat redundant, and the overblown in-your-face visuals combined with the non-stop cacophonous screaming on the soundtrack makes the 53 minute running time seem like a day and a half.

The "restoration" clearly ran out of money at some point as constant scratches and wildly uneven color balancing totally destroy any concentration the viewer might attempt - not that there's anything to really concentrate on. The bottom line is that it's a bombastic assault of both image and sound that's somehow supposed to indicate that society's elderly are getting a raw deal. And it fails spectacularly in attempting to communicate this sensitive theme.

It makes for nice marketing to imply that the film's financiers found the finished work to be too unsettling, gruesome, horrifying (all of which were used in the ballyhoo trumpeting this film's release,) but in truth it's just not a very good movie and really should've been kept hidden indefinitely.

But, since George's name has a dollar value attached to it and he's no longer a meal ticket to certain people, it's not surprising that this "discovery" was plucked from its dark closet, hurriedly patched together (by the talented colorist of such complex works as Pawn Stars, no less,) and auctioned off to the highest bidder as a "lost" Romero classic.

But the fanboys will still throw money at it because it's "George A. Romero" and they couldn't care less about being bilked as long as their obsession is fed.

The things greedy people do to make money . . it gets no more shameful than this.

When I first heard this was being released I was excited and the more i heard about it, the more excited I got. And let me say this, it truly lived up to my expectations. It's depressing how something that came out all the way back in 1973 is still relevant. How we mistreat elderly and are so cut to the point with them and not giving them time to think or give them equal opportunities.

The symbolism, from the white suit he wears getting dirtier to elderly people selling of clocks, will burn into your memory. The visuals progressively get more and more distressing.

It truly is the scariest thing Romero has ever directed. Maybe even one of his greatest films.