CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY
WITH DEAD THINGS
Somebody please take a gun and SHOOT ME IN THE HEAD
"I know I'm going to see it before I die. So, I may as well see it now."
This is the rationale I use whenever I watch something I know is gonna suck anyway. It is with this spirit that I rented Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things. And it sucked. It sucked ass. It sucked blue whale's ass.
The, uh, plot consists of an acting troupe which sails off to an island (why?) and performs Satanic rituals, which after over an hour of non action, raises the dead, which kill everyone.
Virtually everything is bad about this movie. The acting is bad. The makeup is bad. The writing (constructed so that every single character is written as comic relief, unsuccessfully) is the most inane I've ever heard. (sample nutcase line: two obviously homosexual director's assistants bicker constantly after one is dug up from being buried alive. "I can't imagine why you'd want to bury yourself in that filthy little hole," one says. Were I Roger Ebert, this is where I'd write "Ho, ho.")
Even the clothing is stupid, with the goofiest fucking pants I've ever seen. The box describes the director of the troupe as a "Manson type", but didn't Manson's followers like him? The actors here all resent and mock this guy.
Here's another sample of how lame this movie was. After apparently failing to invoke the arrival of Satan in a ritual, the director curses him at length. Then one of this actresses says that that was a poor attempt at cursing the devil, and that only a true performer can do it justice...so she gives it a try, and sounds even, somehow, more lame.
Lame, lame, lame! If this movie were a penis, it'd not only be flaccid, but it would have gotten frostbite and fallen off. The one redeeming factor of this movie is the seriously fucked-up, wild music heard during the "Dead are rising from the graves" scene. I get the feeling it's swiped from another movie. I don't know what's more amazing - that such a great title can hide such a bad movie, or that the man behind this one is none other than Bob Clark, who helmed one of the most frightening movies I've ever seen, Black Christmas.
The script was apparently originally titled Zreaks. I can't imagine anything in the world I'd care less about than why.