User reviews

"I haven't laughed this hard since granny got caught in the wringer," says one of the potheads in this hilarious quasi-spoof of all those Val Lewton and George A. Romero walking-dead movies we have come to love (or loath, depending on your personal taste) through the years.

In this story, a young actor pair play a ghoulish prank on the rest of their troupe after, one spooky night, they visit a cemetery island. Their artistic director, Alan, pretends to bring the dead back to life by conducting a highly stylized ritual.

Way too much screen time is misspent; the amateur dialog includes lame witticisms, melodrama and other kinds of unnecessary filler commentaries (And can't Alan stop that irritating laughter... way too much!). Once the action kicks in (which comes close to the end of this film), it's worth the wait.

I saw this one on a late-night, local station television program that ran films very much like this one... only this one scared me at the age of 13... but then again, you might laugh your way through it, until the bitter end... ...which is probably the reason, nowadays, why very few people still wear striped hip-huggers.

A theatre troupe is misled by their crackpot leader (Alan Ormsby) to spend the night on an infamous isle off the coast of Miami known for its cemetery of outcast criminals. There he tries his hand at raising the dead using a grimoire.

"Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things" (1972) is a horror indie by Bob Clark (director/writer) & Ormsby (writer) inspired by "Night of the Living Dead" (1968). It only cost $70,000 (about $45,000 less than "Night"), but the spooky atmosphere is effective (with eerie sounds for the soundtrack rather than conventional music), the zombie make-up is well done and the amusing characters were written & performed with personality and spunk.

Brunette Jane Daly stands out in the female department as Terry (the girl with the yellow shirt) while Anya Ormsby is reminiscent of Parker Posey as the spiritually sensitive lass (she was married to Alan at the time of shooting). Meanwhile Valerie Mamches is entertaining as the quasi-Gypsy woman.

While watching I couldn't help think of Steve Gerber's Man-Thing comics from 1973-1975. The location and vibe are similar, just without a swamp monster. He was obviously influenced by this cult flick.

The film runs 1 hour, 27 minutes, and was shot in the Coconut Grove area of Miami.

GRADE: B-

Bob Clark was always more interested in comedy, even when making horror. The problem has always been, for me at least, that his sense of humor was too stupid and infantile to ever be funny, or even believable when coming from the mouth of anybody over the age of ten. And so in 'Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things' we have a bunch of grown adults behaving like elementary school children – pouting, whining, giggling and taunting their way from one pointless scene to another. Though the characters' childishness is supposed to be a plot point (hence the title), it's so tedious, repetitive and irritating as to make the first 2/3 of the movie almost unwatchable. Writer Alan Ormsby, badly miscast as the lead character, delivers one of the most embarrassing and cringeworthy performances I've ever seen. And don't get me started on the ridiculous caricatures of two gay men that pop up half way through.

It's worth sitting through all the Scooby Doo bullsh*t for a final act that seems like it was plucked from another, and far superior, movie. Sure, it's a complete rip-off of 'Night of the Living Dead', with everyone trapped in a house under siege by the undead hoards, but after such an appalling first hour, even blatant plagiarism is a welcome relief. But anyone expecting Tom Savini-style blood and guts will be sorely disappointed – 'Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things' is rated PG for a reason.

The hand-held camera-work is a nice touch, and the dark and grainy film stock lends a certain low-fi analogue appeal, but such aesthetic niceties are rendered redundant thanks to Orsmby's incompetence as both a writer and actor. There are a couple of scenes that are genuinely arresting – the sight of the undead scrambling out of their graves to the accompaniment of a raucous ambient industrial soundtrack works well, and one of the final shots, of zombies tumbling in to an upstairs bedroom in slow motion has a certain raw and gritty realism about it.

'Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things' is an ultra low-budget, played-for-laughs, light-hearted zombie flick whose great final act is not compensation enough for an hour of risible and tedious nonsense. But maybe I'm missing the point. Maybe Clark intended this to be the first ever zombie movie for kids. As such, it may be of great value as a preschool introduction to the genre before advancing to better examples.

Interesting tidbit, I used to live in the house where the movie was shot. It belongs to my ex-mother-in-law. And trust me she is much scarier than any zombie! The site is located in Coconut Grove in Miami, Fl. She actually purchased the property with the original house that appeared in the movie but prior to her being able to start renovating the original house it burned down. She later built a new home on the same site. Interesting enough after Hurricane Andrew blew by in 1992 it knocked over a huge avocado tree in the backyard and my ex-brother-in-law and I dug up tons of old turn of the century bottles that had been buried under the tree. Even more interesting the late Marjorie Stoneman Douglas the great conservationist champion used to frequent the home which was once owned by the Deering family and would summer there. The home she lived in until she passed away is just a few blocks away... Yes a very interesting piece of land with a very interesting history. And don't get me started on my own personal ghostly experiences at the house!!! Really!

I'd heard a lot of bad things about this film before seeing it, but thought all the negative comments were probably down to the film's low budget and poor acting - both of which I can deal with when it comes to zombie films. However, what I didn't count on is this film being really, really boring; if there's one thing you can count on from low budget zombies, its gore and entertainment - but unfortunately, this film has neither. I'm quite surprised, because the previous two horror films I've seen from director Bob Clark - Deathdream and Black Christmas - were both highly inventive and entertaining films, but Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things just doesn't cut it. The plot line follows a group of young adults that travel to a burial island in order to mess about with rituals to bring the dead back to life. However, they soon learn that playing with things they don't understand is a really stupid idea when their rituals actually bring the dead back to life and the corpses of the island return to feast on their blood!

The plots sounds like it could lead to a decent flick, but what I didn't mention is that the interesting parts don't start until the final twenty minutes; and as this is a ninety minute movie, I'm sure you can guess that this isn't a good thing. The opening hour and ten minutes are padded out with poor acting and even worse characters. I can understand setting up a situation so that the horror is more potent once it comes along; but please, if you're going to spend so long on it, you've really got to make it interesting. All of the characters in the film are over the top and annoying, and personally I just wanted the zombies to hurry up and eat them. The film is not without its merits, however, as the atmosphere is a standout. Lucio Fulci would show seven years later how an isolated island and flesh eating zombies can blend well; but Bob Clark already did it with this film. The direction isn't bad either, but it's brought down by poor make-up effects and a distinct lack of blood, which isn't likely to please fans of zombie movies. Overall, I really can't recommend this film; but if you're a hardcore zombie fanatic, you may get a kick out of it.

A group of actors go to a small island and enact a mock ceremony to raise the dead. Unfortunately for them, the ceremony works. The dead rise and devour several of the thespian interlopers and force the surviving members to take refuge in an isolated house.

Despite some bad attempts at black comedy, this low-budget effort has some good scary moments. Some hammy acting and hilarious seventies clothes styles may bring some chuckles.

Florida-based director Bob Clark would go on to direct other low-budget horror films, including the seminal slasher flick "Black Christmas" as well as the comedy hit series. "Porky's" But Clark will most likely be best remembered as the director of the ultimate holiday classic "A Christmas Story" Truly a perfect film in just about every since of the word.

"Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" is a waste of a great title. You'd think with such a wonderful name for the film that it would be a lot more interesting--but it really isn't. In fact, it's interminably dull and the characters are hateful at best! The film is about a group of jerks--led by a bigger jerk who is supposed to be a prankster filmmaker. He takes a group of unsuspecting folks to a cemetery that looks MORE fake than the one in "Plan 9" and plans to scare them with a fake resurrection. The problem is that he is 100% annoying and won't shut up. And, you keep waiting and waiting and waiting for something to happen. However, they are so annoying and stupid that you finally just give up and change to a better film. You keep wanting them to die (especially the main character--Jeez is he annoying). But, if you do wait, the predictable happens and you see the crappiest looking zombies in film history--and the payoff just isn't enough for having to listen to these idiots talk and talk and talk. All in all a cheapo film that isn't enjoyable because the acting and writing (if there is any) is so gosh-darn bad. My advice--stick to a William Grefe, Arch Hall, Ray Dennis Steckler or Ed Wood film--at least these are bad and fun to watch!

Not as good as the title promises, but also not as bad as the first 20 minutes or so might indicate, "CSPwDT" is a sometimes amateurish, sometimes effective horror thriller. Some of the characters are so obnoxious that the first half may be hard-going for many viewers, but when the zombies make their appearance the film invites comparison with "Night of the Living Dead" - certainly the makeup effects are just as good, if not better, and let's remember that "Night" was not exactly overflowing with likable characters, either. The tone is more like that of a homage than of a pure ripoff, and the soundtrack adds to the mood. It may also be the bloodiest "PG" film you'll ever see! (**1/2)

Okay, I saw this when I was a kid in the 70's, and most people who saw this as kids at that time didn't use much of their upstairs hard drives to remember the lengthy build-up that is two thirds of this movie. The movie was ghoulishly funny in an adult way that was really beyond a tyke's comprehension, so kids tended to sit there for an hour scratching their chins, understanding only vaguely that the acting troupe performing satanic rituals on the "burial island" (or whatever it is), is doing something monstrously, horribly WRONG. What they're doing is worse than devil-worship, actually; they're being generally disrespectful in a kind of place (a cemetery) that demands respect as a first requirement. They're...asking for it.

Why these people are so bizarre is anybody's guess. Why the crazed leader of the theatre group, Alan (Alan Ormsby), has chosen this place and these activities for a night of fun is never explored. These people all simply appear to be warped. And, in the tradition of E.C. comics, transgressors are not given a chance to learn the error of their ways and repent; however silly and young and "sorry" you may be, in this universe, if you do something that the spirits of the dead strongly dislike, you will be punished--as in, you will be ripped unceremoniously apart by ghouls, and devoured. While screaming. And then the ghouls will steal your boat.

And the little kids watching this on late-night TV in the 70's seemed to understand this implicitly. It was not at all surprising what happened to this group of misguided transgressors. You may not have deeply understood the fine details of "why." But you knew SOMETHING TRULY AWFUL was going to happen to them, and that essentially, they deserved it. I remember when I watched it that before the film started, the station (Channel 9 out here in Los Angeles) would show scenes of the "good stuff" to get you jazzed, so, you knew some "zombie consequences" were coming down the pike. These people were seriously doomed. And for all its cheapness and crudity and cheesy performances, this is a very frightening and threatening flick, and no one who's seen it, I am willing to wager, has ever gone to a deserted cemetery to jokingly work Satanic rituals for the purpose of raising the dead. The rituals might actually work. And where would you be then?? Huh??? This is a feature length public service announcement to teach kids A.) not to work satanic rituals, because it's wrong, and B.) to always consider the feelings of other people, particularly dead people, because there are consequences to pissing people off--particularly dead people. As such, the film reenforced a lot of strong moral values, and did a lot of kids a lot of good, I feel.

This is a casual, home-made horror film. The goopy red blood has a little bit of peanut butter in it to make it flow better and give it some opacity. The actors are probably wearing clothes from their personal wardrobes, and those hairstyles are theirs as well. It looks like some nice sets were built (nice considering the almost nonexistent budget of this piece), but the tone is almost that of a backyard Halloween show. The participants are having fun more than anything else--college kids playing with masks and dirt and sticky stuff, just barely aware that they're making a twisted 70's morality play. This is grim, upsetting material, and irredeemably wicked and bizarre, but really somehow very enjoyable.

Maybe not the biggest classic in the zombie field but very underrated and, without a doubt, THE gem with the coolest title in horror history (closely followed by "Let Sleeping Corpses Lie). This film is a must for collectors of rare films! Biggest letdown about it is that it starts out really slow…on the verge of dull, even. The plot also is fairly familiar and introduces a group of young people (eccentric ones, since they cherish artistic ambitions) on an island determined to have innocent fun. They're desperately trying to resurrect the dead, but when it actually happens they can't handle it of course. The fool around with corpses and play stupid pranks until the dead finally decide they've had enough of the kids' disrespectful behavior. They rise from their tombs (which provides the film with one of the most well-elaborated and eerie sequences in zombie history) and hunt down the kids. If you have the patience to struggle through the first hour and the more or less uninteresting character-drawings, you'll be rewarded with another half an hour of pure fun and imaginative cruelty. The make-up effects are pretty spooky considering the time it was shot, by the way. The light-headed tone covers up the obvious "Night of the Living Dead" influences but, still, the film could have used a little less talking and more action.

This is one of those great horror movies where the only problems can be found in corporate faults. This movie is full of great characters (even the character you're supposed to hate is really interesting), with good acting to back up the great story. I also like how Alan's necrophiliac desires are really underplayed by how the film is made. Some people won't even catch them the first time they watch it, which gives this an oddly intellectual angle. Also, most of the make-up FX are truly amazing in such a low-budget movie. The close-ups of some of these zombies really make that obvious, which makes me wonder how people could trash on these excellent make-up jobs. You want to see some bad make-up? See "Redneck Zombies", it will redefine what bad make-up is for you. Anyway, this movie is good at the black humor and just as good with the chills. This being a PG film without hardly any blood, I was surprised to find that the zombie attack scenes had an intensity to them that greatly rivaled those in "NOTLD" without hardly any gore. (Still, I do want to see the uncut version available through some import services and see why that version was rated for people 18 and over!) Another thing I love about this movie is that it has some of the greatest atmosphere to it. It retains a classic, dark-foggy-night horror feel throughout, with even the slowest of moments having a definite creepiness to them. It's also great to see a horror movie with zombies that relies more on the characters than blood and guts for a change. Many criticize this for being too slow, but I enjoyed every minute of it. A very sadly underrated and ultimately overlooked masterpiece of indie horror.

I am shocked to see that so many people remember this film. I saw it as a kid on late night TV, Channel 9, about 30 years ago. I was young and of course naive to all the demented hippie talk. The group of young actors ship off to a weird island in the middle of the night. Eerie enough. One of them is the effeminate leader coordinating the satanic ritual. One has a weak bladder and wets himself periodically. Hee-Hee. Another is a Brando-esquire stud and there are a couple of babes. This is the perfect Halloween flick, because it's just so irreverently different and loads up on the chills. The special effects are out of a dime store, but who cares, this is 1972 and probably made on a budget of less than $10,000. The final denouement of the zombies invading the house is classic and so ghastly. I enjoyed this very much as a child and I'm hopeful the remake will be true to the original. This is what B-Horror films ought to be; escapism, nothing else. Watching a group of hapless drama funks mock a corpse and disrespect the dead is just so sick and wrong that you can only laugh and enjoy the fate that befalls them. Give this a look if you have nothing better to do some night. Good schlocky fun.

It's always interesting to view a horror movie after hearing so much praise from other fans. Experience has taught me that you should never generalize fan taste within a genre. My expectations of this movie were a great deal higher than my viewed opinion.

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things is a movie with a good intended plot that trips up too many times to carry it out. The whole idea of a band of actors staging a reanimation of dead corpses had me intrigued. However, everything degenerated into cinematic chaos. The actors,who for the most part were competent and amazingly expressive, were offered roles that fail to maintain consistent characterization. Some of these characters go from ambivalence about the whole act of defiling a cemetery, to outspoken criticism, back to ambivalence. It's one thing for characters to have a change heart in the course of the film; it's another to produce an overly dynamic, circular attitude that loops every ten minutes.

Another inconsistent element of this film is the premise. Does the main protagonist intend for the ceremony to be theatrical prank or does he actually conspire with dark spiritual forces to raise the dead? Even with the aforementioned flaws, I would recommend this movie to other horror fans, since I believe that only true horror fans will appreciate the dark atmospheric components and be able to ignore the plot's inconsistency. The scene where the dead rise out of the grave is made extremely haunting (even to a veteran zombie enthusiast) by the excellent combined use of scenery and sound, and the great choice of skilled actors chosen to play the reanimated dead. Current filmmakers should learn from CSPWDT about using the proper video and audio techniques in mood development.

All in all, if you are zombie movie completionist like me, you should take time to locate and view this movie. It's a fun watch.

While not quite a zombie classic, this movie should be on your watch list if you claim to be a fan of zombie cinema.

It takes a little bit of a different course than the George Romero stuff, playing much of the movie for laughs as a group of actors perform a ritual on a deserted island that raises the dead. The changeover to a real horror movie doesn't happen until pretty late in the game, and I think that's a lot of peoples' main complaint with this.

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things came out only a few years after Night of the Living Dead, but the color filming makes it look totally different. The color in this movie is worth it, even just to see Alan Ormby's striped hippie pants and orange shirt, but there are some good, eerie scenes in this movie as well.

Those of you who consider everything that came off the pen of George Romero to be sacred writ will probably not be impressed with this, but most other people would probably agree that this movie should be a little higher up on the 1970's zombie meter. Part of the problem might be that a lot of people didn't see this movie. Over the years I noticed it was rarely shown on TV.

Another pre-PORKY'S horror flick by director Bob Clark, this one pays clumsy homage to NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD only it's nowhere near as good.

The film is so full of sarcastic dialog that becomes grating after awhile, making me (as the viewer) wish all of the all the characters would just get killed off so the whole thing would end sooner and I wouldn't have to listen to it anymore. Yabada..yabada..yabada..

Hippie film crew led by Alan Ormsby arrive on a Florida island, scouting for locations for his horror flick. They spend a lot of time in the graveyard (which looks like a studio set) digging up a freshly buried corpse to use as a movie prop. Ormsby also has a witchcraft book with him and says a bunch of mumbo-jumbo in order to get everyone in the mood.

Unfortunately, this spell Ormsby has just recited causes all the dead to rise up out of the graves and attack them. Even the makeup jobs look pretty amateurish. If they had used b/w film, it might not have looked so obvious.

It's only in the last 10 minutes or so that some action finally takes place and we don't have to listen to all the previous crap. But by that point, you're just ready to chuck this whole thing into the sh*tpile and just leave it there.

2 out of 10 for all the stalling

The story and atmosphere reek of 1970s American horror films, and the plot is as basic as can be. The leader, with a god-complex, of an acting troupe brings his small group of actors to a cemetery island to take part in a ritual to raise the dead. Either because of the ritual, or that and their disrespect for the dead and Satan, which is never made clear, the dead come back to life in the style of flesh eating shamblers.

The first ghoul doesn't make it's appearance until halfway into the movie, and the first-half is packed with long dialog, but there is some really good and creepy cinematography when the zombies do come.

The MST3K boys wouldn't know where to begin with "Children Shouldn't". In fact, this best thing about this little fly-speck is, at least it's not Italian horror.

On the negative side...well, that's just about everything else: bad story, bad acting, bad sound editing (REALLY bad sound editing; what's with all them wolves howling in the background, anyhoo?), and enough stereotypically flamboyant gayness to set the cause of gender-orientation rights back twelve billion years.

The most amazing thing? There seems to be a REMAKE in production. You can never find an Art Quality cop when you need one.

For the hardcore B-horror movie junkie, I thought I'd pass along some interesting trivia related to this movies promotional scheme. This flick came to my town on the drive-in circuit and somehow managed to talk several area restaurants into offering a special menu for kids (!) that hawked the movie and simultaneously grossed out parents. The menu featured the individual restaurants usual fair, but with new titles... blood shake.. flesh strips (french fries)... brain delight (jello). The half rotten skull visage on the cover of the menu was enough to send most parents into fits. I wish I had kept it. Talk about a collectible! It's a great film, though. Enough tongue in cheek to make its sick theme tolerable. That menu made it impossible for me to see it. Had to wait until I found it on video many years later.