Jan 10, 2025
Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (1972)
"Come children, Uncle Alan's going to curdle your blood."
"Uncle Alan already does. Turns my stomach, too."
#children shouldn't play with dead things#1972#horror imagery#horror film#bob clark#american cinema#alan ormsby#valerie mamches#jeff gillen#anya ormsby#paul cronin#jane daly#roy engleman#robert philip#bruce solomon#alecs baird#seth sklarey#bob sherman#curtis bryant#carl zittrer#a pretty rough and ready indie horror film about a theatre troupe who fuck around with the occult (and‚ naturally‚ find out)#this hasn't a whole lot to recommend it on its own merits; it's most interesting as a formative work by filmmaker Clark‚ his first stab at#the horror genre. juat a few years later Clark would helm the superlative Black Christmas‚ sincerely one of the greatest slasher#films ever made‚ but Children... is if anything a testament to just how much his style progressed in a short span. there are moments here#that pack a visual punch‚ tbf‚ and once the dead begin to rise it improves considerably. anything with the impressive looking 'Orville'#corpse (third and final pics above) is great. the problem is more in the script‚ cowritten with star and frequent Clark collaborator Ormsby#it's a turgid mess‚ with an hour of bitchy bickering between the theatre group before anything really happens. there's some great snark in#there and it's pretty entertaining at first‚ but my god does it go on (and on) until you're willing the zombies to tear everyone to shreds#in the zombie canon this has obvious debts to Romero's NotLD as well as more traditional folklore‚ but its emphasis stays frustratingly on#the unlikeable characters and their incidental conversations rather than exploring anything more interesting.