I would love to watch this movie with Jenny one time, but unfortunately she's deathly afraid of zombies, so I've never watched any zombie movie with here. I got my burrito ready and sat down to watch, and sadly there was a Faces of Death preview before the movie. Put me off of eating altogether, and now the sound is garbled. perhaps it will stabilize, but it seems doubtful.
I've never see the movie in this release format, so I was a little excited. The Bee Kind, Rewind sticker is slightly ironic, as the last viewer did not rewind. I imagine this video being rented hundreds of times at the mom and pop video store, Coral Video, in Florida, and probably dozens of times being returned in anger when the viewers saw that Faces of Death promo, which is completely uncensored and as grotesque and disturbing as I remember.
The sound is still garbled, although the picture seems much clearer than even the DVD releases I've seen. That Faces of Death preview sort of through me for a loop. Also, my bean burrito has freezer burn. An inauspicious start to this viewing party. This is the description from the back of the box...
While preparing themselves for an upcoming play, five aspiring actors are led to a deserted burial island by their bizarre director/mentor Alan. (Alan Ormsby-Deranged, Cat People, Porky's II).
Alan, a "Manson type," seems to exert strange control over his group who he calls his "children."
At Alan's urging the "Children" dig up a rotting corpse and Alan attempts a revival with various occult incantations.
After his apparent failure, the harried children are forced to take the corpse back to their cabin to party.
Unfortunately, in Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, the dead do rise-and they are hungry.
Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things thrust its unwitting performers into a nightmare of madness and murder in a gruesome movie that follows in the infamous tradition of Night of the Living Dead.
Occasionally campy and always terrifying- don't see this one alone.
VHS boxes were really interesting because most of the time it was readily apparent that the person who wrote the description for the distributor either never saw the movie, hated the movie, or was incredibly high when they saw the movie. This is an example of that. Also, one was often left wondering why the person who created a cool video box wasn't the person who directed the movie, especially when the movie wasn't half as interesting as the box.
Wait a minute, about a half an hour in the sound is starting to stabilize. I've never seen this on Beta, but maybe I'll even find an 8mm film print some day and watch it.
Geez I'm glad I didn't ever make the mistake of putting in this tape when Jenny or the kids were around.
I'm always struck by a few things every time I watch this movie.
-The island cemetery isn't on an island at all. It's the same one used in Porky's II, and clearly is not on an island.
-I always wondered why almost none of these actors worked very much after this. They all seemed rather competent.
-This crew just seemed to be having a lot of fun and liking each other. This seems to be born out in that many of them worked in various capacities in future Bob Clark/Alan Ormsby productions. I'd really like to interview some of them and ask if they truly were having the good time it appears they are, maybe get a few stories from that era.
I guess my final question is if there is any material after the movie. There doesn't appear to be any difference in this cut from any other I've seen.
