Don't Go Near the Park

The people who put down this movie must be the kind of people who when they were children would make fun of the retarded kid on the school playground. Of course, this movie is a dumb. Of course, it is laughably inept. It's not "so bad it's good"--it's not a good movie in any sense of the word--but there is something likable about it. Living in a time when movies may as well be written by corporate marketing directors and edited by a Hollywood test audience, it's nice to see a movie that is completely ridiculous, technically proficient in some ways but nevertheless looking like it was shot in someone's backyard with primitive special effects, amateurish acting, and Mom no doubt providing the catering. It was obviously a labor of love if not exactly a labor of competent film-making.

The plot is something about 12,000 year old brother and sister witches who have survived by cannibalizing young children, but cannot actually become young unless they have a kid and then--oh, who cares? Anyway, the brother chooses a young Linnea Quigley to be the bearer of his child. A comment here on Quigley: this is the kind of role she was meant to play--she provides some nudity (full-frontal, full-dorsal, lingering breast shot)and then exits stage left. Her nude scenes certainly add to the movie, but they are not cynically expected to carry the whole movie as was the case in a lot of the roles she did after she became a "scream queen". And maybe she can't act, but at least she tried in the early days before she adopted her intentional "bad acting" schtick.

The lead though is not Quigley but her "daughter" played by one Tamara Taylor, who never appeared in another movie but is pretty memorable in this one. She faces off against her old crone aunt and protects some other children from her (with the help of the obviously drunk headliner Aldo Ray). She's not a great actress by any means, but she fits THIS movie perfectly. Just as this movie at times resembles a deranged children's fairy tale with it bizarre storyline of witches and endangered youngsters before it suddenly launches into some unconvincing but very graphic gore(which got it put on the "video nasty" list in Britain), Taylor seems like a young, innocent girl but also has surprising and disturbing scenes like where she ends up in a van being pretty graphically groped by a group of would-be rapists(including, ironically enough, the director). This is followed by the most unintentionally funny scene in the movie where a protective amulet she is wearing causes the van to run off the road and explode in a near-nuclear fireball.

Is all this meant as a recommendation? Well, maybe not. But you have to admire the fact that something like this was ever made in the first place. There's never been another movie like this--and there probably never will be again.

I read the warnings online. Despite them, I stupidly went out and rented this piece of garbage. Wow. I've been let-down by a movie before, but never by a movie I had no expectations for anyway. This was just bad. First of all, the intro takes place "12,000 years ago"... which would make the characters 10,000 years older than Christ, but they speak VERY good American English... wow. THAT'S an impressive feat, almost as impressive as going on a 12,000 year-long murdering spree and not being caught once. Another impressive feat would have to be the awesome special effects they used to show aging... which were the exact same effects used in The Wolf Man almost 40 years prior to this. Incredible. [sarcasm]

Yes folks, this movie includes it all: bad acting, stupid effects, weak plot, and best of all, two 12,000 year old murderers, everything. The only thing this movie has going for it, in my opinion, is that it's hard to find.

If you are showering and a creepy man walks in on you and stares at you, instead of kicking him out and calling the cops, you should ask him if he needs a room to rent. Unfortunately, he'll probably end up marrying you so that you will bare his child and be the perfect mom so that he can sacrifice the kid as a virgin to stop a cannibal curse on himself and his sister which was placed 12,000 years ago. Or something. That's pretty much the plot of "Don't Go Near the Park." This is some of the worst writing in the genre. Dark Sky does a great job with packaging, as usual, but this is the first film they've re-released that is probably skippable, as it has little to no entertainment value.

Now I've seen my fair share of garbage over the years. Hell, I admit to actively seeking it out. But nothing prepared me for this little wonder.

Yeah, yeah, yeah I can hear you all say. We've seen Zombie Flesh Eaters 2, we've seen all of Ed Wood's little wonders, we've even sat through a Fred Olen Ray movie marathon. FORGET IT! You ain't seen this.

OK, let's start with the plot which is actually fairly complex for a film of this quality, it's also totally ludicrous. Incestuous, murdering cave siblings are cursed to live for eternity living off the flesh of the young until they can sacrifice a virginal descendant of the tribe when two stars with silly names come into alignment. In a whirlwind 10 minutes of celluloid the brother rents a room, marries the landlady, has a daughter with her who becomes a teenager and runs away from home due to turbulent family life. From there she meets two other runaways who coincidentally live with the sister of the cave pair. The kids rumble their game, zombies rise from the ground, laser beams are shot from eyes, and the two 'eternal' siblings are killed.

Got that? Right. It gets worse. Everything about this film goes way beyond amateur, from the 'old person' make up, to the Persian rug cavemen clothes, to the dissolve shot ageing FX. The lighting is abysmal; spot lights are shone straight into the set giving each shot an early silent film style ring of shadow around the edge of the shot. The acting is appalling, especially from the grimacing Crackers Phinn. The plot progresses at bizarre speeds, some scenes dragging on for way too long and other plot points zooming past at top speed.

Despite all of the above (or perhaps because of it) I love this movie. I really could bang on about it for days but I won't. If you ever find a copy (which isn't easy) you have to see it. I defy you to find anything worse in such a truly wonderful way (Invitation To Hell comes close).

Horror fans will also be interested to see a very early appearance by Linnea Quigley, who shows from an early age her willingness to take her top off.

Oh yeah, there's a 'shock' ending too.

Marvellous.

I have a certain prejudice for this cheapie because it was the only film i saw at a drive-in. I was a kid and i saw this small ad for the film showing at the drive-in and i asked my dad if he could take me the following night to see it. This is in Austin,Texas on Saturday, July 3. During that afternoon we took a boat ride close to where Hippie Hollow is. Hippie Hollow is a retreat where nudists hang out. Imagine my shock as a young boy seeing nudists in boats and getting a distant view of completely nude women! As we finished our trip i had convinced my dad to take me. He told a friend who accompanied us, "Last night we watched WOLFEN on HBO. This movie had a head come off...,i don't see how DON'T GO NEAR THE PARK could be any worse". That evening my dad saw one of the worst films he ever saw! I was bored,so i strolled along the pavement for a few minutes. Before, i was worried i was going to be scarred. When i got back to my dad's truck, he asked, "Are you scarred?" I replied i wasn't and when i asked him the same thing,he retorted "Nope". Afterwards,i was greatly disappointed. As few of you who've seen the film know, it is an ultra low-budget,unsavory schlock fest. However, as i approached adulthood,i had a dream this was showing on my local station in the daytime! This made me want to take a look at this film again. It was a nightmare to find and i only saw a videocassette of this in a Kingsville videostore! I rented it and saw it at a friend's house. I was caught off-guard that Lineau Quigly was in it! Last year i looked for an Amazon copy and they didn't have one. For some reason i stumbled on another site and it had a rare DVD! I purchased it. I now have this childhood memory on DVD!