Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things

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-

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.

This is how they should do horror movies nowadays. This one is not as good as other zombie movies like "Dawn Of The Dead" or "Zombie Flesheaters" but it has it´s potential. A group of people come to a remote island and start to do satanic rituals to wake up the dead. The whole satanic ritual thing seems to fail but who knows what awaits them. The whole movie is dark and scary. This is how i would like to see movies being made today. What about the ending??? Yessssssss i like it very much. He he he he.........

I first encountered this movie as a kid. The ad in the paper with Alan, a corpse and the guy with the beanie...it was speaking to me in ways that I wouldn't understand for years--black humor! I first saw it on t.v. as a teen, long before I'd seen "Night Of The Living Dead," and it spoke to me again. It was scary...but it was funny and sort of "wicked" too. It went places I knew instinctively most movies did not, and I loved it for that, as well as the fact that I knew others would NOT like it.

The story is nothing remarkable--a bunch of hippy actors invade an island, raise the flesh-eating dead, and die horribly. What is memorable about this movie is the execution. The characters are all wonderfully obnoxious actors. They spit campy, bitchy, memorable dialog and are all generally hateful and selfish. It comes off as phony, but most actors I know really talk and behave like the characters in this movie, as though they are "in a movie." The actors did a great job. You have a sense all the characters are going to die in great pain, especially the beautifully hateful, snivelling director of the theater company with the stripey bell-bottoms, and the anticipation of this is wonderful. When the zombies finally enact their revenge it's extremely satisfying.

The effects are cheap, but then, I've never had a problem with cheap zombie effects. It's the idea of a zombie that is so frightening, not the make-up necessarily. They are irrational and unrelenting, even if it's a rubber mask they're wearing. But the zombies in this movie are, for all that, fairly effective. They come late, but by then you've been nudged into believing the whole movie is just a lark, so they're all the more effective. When they hit, they hit as hard as "NOTLD." The music score is eerie and effective, as well as the locale. You can almost feel the fog creeping up on you.

Where this one really distinguishes itself, however, is the "weirdo" factor. It flirts with gay stereotypes and necrophilia, Satan worship, Jewish humor and seriously bad 70's hair and clothing. It's a lot smarter than it appears, or most would think, and smart isn't what most people want (or get) with their cheap exploitation horror. It's surprisingly grisly for a PG and far too tame for an R. It's too funny for horror and too creepy for comedy. In other words, it's perfect! I'm sorry to hear they intend to remake it, but hopefully with it's original creator at the helm it'll be watchable at least. Bob Clark is an oddity, to be sure--he went from this to another wonderful cheap-o zombie film ("Dead Of Night," aka about 40,000 other titles) and "Black Christmas," to..."A Christmas Story"?? "Porky's"?? "Baby Geniuses 2?" Hmm. Well, it almost makes me respect him more for defying description.

Here's a tip of that hat to a great, original film from one of it's many "children..."

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.