52/72: CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS

 by Anthony King

It’s a love letter, I think.

Bob Clark is most well known for his Christmas family classic, A Christmas Story (1983). Up through 1990, Clark's filmography is that of a journeyman cult director. Clark began his filmmaking career with She-Man: A Story of Fixation (1967), the story of “a soldier who is forced to take estrogen and wear lingerie when he's blackmailed by a violent transvestite.” I haven't seen it, but believe me when I say I will be seeking it out posthaste. He then followed that film with three horror films that have gained cult status this millennium: the film on which this essay is based, Dead of Night (1974), and Black Christmas (1974). For the next 16 years Clark directed mainly flops which have all since or recently begun to achieve cult stardom. Highlights include Porky's and its first sequel, Rhinestone, Turk 182!, and Loose Cannons. From then till his untimely death, Clark worked mainly in DTV and TV family movies. But the first half of his career is a cultist's wet dream.

Children is the first of four instances where Clark worked with fellow writer and actor Alan Ormsby. After Children, Ormsby would pen the scripts for Dead of Night and Porky's II: The Next Day (1983), and Deranged (1974) which Clark produced. Ormsby himself is a cult figure, mostly known for his writing scripts for My Bodyguard (1980), Cat People (1982), Popcorn (1991) which he also directed, and The Substitute (1996). Ormsby was also a makeup artist, having worked on previously mentioned films, as well as Shock Waves (1977) and The Pee-Wee Herman Show. In Children, Ormsby stars as the leader of an acting troupe who has retreated to a remote island off the coast of Florida. Unbeknownst to his actors, Alan (his character's name) plans to wake the dead to push the boundaries of the theatre. Naturally, things go awry, and we're treated to a zombie attack not unlike (read: exactly like) Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968).

While many people love this film, I just can't get fully on board with it yet. This was the second time I watched it, and it got a column bump this time around, albeit a very minor bump. It's not even that the poster doesn't sell what the movie actually is: the poster is exactly what the movie is. The final 15 minutes are worth the watch if you've never seen it. The zombie attack is marvelous. It's scary, the makeup and costumes and masks are wonderfully grotesque, and there's a moment where [redacted]'s lover is overtaken by a horde of undead and [redacted] just stands there and watches. It's sad and evil and even gave me a little shiver. The 71 preceding minutes, though, left so much to be desired. This is a cheaply made film populated with mostly non-actors. Much like the actual plot, this film is a half-baked idea that lost me in the first three-quarters both times I've watched it. I don't mind a low budget. I sometimes don't even mind sub-par acting. Even a story conjured in a sunken living room of a bachelor pad filled with bong smoke can be good sometimes. All of this combined, though, for whatever reason, played to the detriment of Children, unfortunately.

As I'm typing these words, I may be having a slow realization that it's the characters I don't like in this movie. There are two characters I like, and they're the stereotypically gay, Jewish friends stuck reburying the dead, and we don't spend much time with them, of course. Everyone else? I can't stand them. Alan is an overacting, pompous ass who has one brief moment of genius. His real life wife Anya plays a crazy-eyed cultist of his. The other women are bitchy and the men are pigs. The entire movie is populated with despicable characters played by people who can't act. And those of you who know my taste know I love despicable characters and stories, so what is it about these people in particular that I can't stand? Maybe they're leaning too far into stereotypes. Or maybe these characters are played so well, in fact, that I buy everything that comes out of their mouths. Either way, I'm not rushing back to watch this movie any time soon. Although, to be honest, I will give it at least one more chance in a few years.

My favorite thing about this film, though, is that Clark wears his love for horror on his sleeve. He's clearly one of us. I saw either touches of or full-on tributes to films like Island of Lost Souls (1932), Plan 9 From Outer Space (1957), Black Sunday (1960), The City of the Dead (1960), Carnival of Souls (1962), and the aforementioned NOTLD. If anything, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things is a love letter to early zombie movies, and for that I commend it and those involved.