Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (1972)

In addition to being really obnoxious Alan is also the director of a theater group.  One night he decides to coerce his cast into coming to an island and participating in some supernatural hi-jinks.  They can either participate or lose their jobs.  But when Alan’s spell doesn’t raise the dead he ups the ante and brings the corpse of a man named Orville back to the house to party with them.  But what they don’t know is that the spell did work and they will soon be besieged by the undead.  Will any of them make it off the island or will they all be victims of the zombies? 

When I was younger I never really liked this movie.  But when I saw that VCI had released a new special edition of the movie on DVD I decided to take another chance on it.  I’m glad I gave the movie another chance because I really enjoyed it.  The story is really very simple and follows the “formula” of a typical zombie movie.  Isolate a group of people, zombies arrive, pick them off the survivors one at a time, and slap on an ominous ending.  But it isn’t the story that makes this movie so much fun to watch, it is the way the film uses humor right along side with the horror.  This is a really well written movie with some truly funny dialogue tossed in.  Not only that but the characters are well written and acted.  In many cases the cast is the weak link on a low budget movie like this.  But the cast here is really good.  I especially liked the performance of Alan Ormsby, who appropriately enough plays Alan in the movie.  He creates one of the most annoying and nasty human beings that I’ve ever seen on film.  Really I wanted to reach into the screen and slap him myself. 

Of course we can’t review a zombie movie without talking some special effects.  For the movie’s low budget I think the zombies look pretty good.  There are a couple of neat looking “stars” but mostly they are just people in caked in some blue makeup.  The look of the zombies is helped greatly by the choice shooting the movie with a layer of fog along the ground.  This allows the light to bounce up and creates some really creepy shadows that make the zombies look much better than they would if light normally. 

There are a couple of extras on the DVD that I want to mention.  The movie has an audio commentary with three of the cast, including Alan Ormsby, which is informative and filled with funny stories.  There is also a cool panel that was filmed at a showing of Children where several members of the cast and crew talk about working with the director, the late Bob Clark. 

I highly recommend that everyone check out Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things.  Especially now with a new DVD from VCI, the movie hasn’t ever looked better.  For more information check them out at http://www.vcientertainment.com/

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer

© Copyright 2008 John Shatzer