Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (1972)
Directed by Bob Clark
Ah one of my favorite trivia fact drops. Bob Clark, director of that beloved holiday film….Black Christmas also directed A Christmas Story, and this. Cracks me up that this guy made a movie so messed up like Black Christmas but also made a Christmas Story that airs 24hrs every year for families around the world to watch.
Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, I watched toward the end of a 12 hour horror marathon, which was awesome btw. First time watch for me. The plot is about a group of theater friends that go to an abandoned island to do a mock satanic rite. It backfires and the dead rise and begin attacking. I enjoy a good zombie movie, I really do. This one was so slow, maybe it just wasn’t my kind of movie? It is only 87mins long, but it takes an hour or so for the zombies to even rise up. They hint at it at least 5 times. You see a zombie hand move, then boom back to the director douchebag disrespecting a corpse they unearthed. Back to a zombie hand moving slightly, whip back to the dbag, back and forth and finally, FINALLY they jump up and begin attacking.
The zombies look great! Reminds me of Fulci’s Zombi 2, heavy makeup, gross looking and slow moving. The gore isn’t too crazy, some scenes of blood and guts, but nothing Fulci level. There is a comedic element to this as well that was ok. The big guy said at least 10 times that he peed his pants. It was funny the first 3 though haha. The whole time I’m waiting and waiting for the director to get his. Waiting for a zombie to rip his face off or devour his guts. What happens to him? The corpse, Orville that he dug up comes alive and basically just tackles him. You don’t really see much and it seems the characters that were likeable got it worse. Paul the good guy dies super fast after trying to save everyone and the really pretty girl gets killed as well. They were the two with morals and kept questioning why they were doing this. I guess to me it is all backwards.
I appreciate a lot with this movie. It was low budget and the scenery was great. The atmosphere was scary and the zombies looked cool. The pacing was what was lacking with me. The dialogue wasn’t great either but I can overlook that. They hinted too much and built up the zombies to such a high level that it never fully paid off. This was an early zombie flick so the crazy gore and intense kills weren’t there, but man if they didn’t hint so much and tease it, I might have enjoyed it more. I give this a C.
