Don't Go Near the Park (1979) Reviews

• Possibly the greatest badfilm of all time

  DocEmmettBrown2003-06-03

  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.

• You've never seen a movie like THIS before

  lazarillo2006-06-30

  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.

• DON'T GO NEAR THE DVD (Unless you want a good laugh!)

  DistantJ2006-06-02

  I caught this (though not the whole film) on The Horror Channel (UK), and last month it came out on DVD. I got myself a copy (since it was cheap) to mock review for my upcoming website. This movie is regarded by some to be the "best bad movie of all time". The plot? Well, it's an incoherent mess, but here goes... *deep breath* Two cannibal people, one male one female, from a crazy tribe of cannibals in the past got in trouble so an old lady who thinks she's in charge cursed them. The curse causes them to live forever as immortals but constantly age, but they can retain their youth by every certain number of years eating the insides of a virgin who happens to be the guy's daughter, or something like that. So the guy gets married and raises a daughter called Bonnie. And then she one day runs away to the park which is like abandoned and lives in this abandoned house with an old lady (who is obviously the female cannibal), a little kid who swears, and a guy who they call 'cowboy'. The two cannibals want to do some ritual on Bonnie and eat her guts. WHAT WILL SHE DO?!! The film does feature Linnea Quigely in her first ever role, and yes, she gets her bits out. Though obviously not quite as much as in Return of the Living Dead! Most of the actors do a rubbish job, though, and the camera-work, directing and effects are all absurdly bad for it's time - after the first time I watched it I was stunned to find out it was an early 80's flick, it barely passes as an early 70's low budget horror! - and absurd pointless ideas just appear now and then which will just get you laughing. Oh and did I mention the SUPER CANNIBAL LASER EYES? That's right, when somebody ticks them off they can use their SUPER CANNIBAL LASER EYES on them. Doesn't kill them. Just makes them hurt a little, apparently. The whole thing feels like something some students might make, only I doubt even students would include SUPER CANNIBAL LASER EYES. Top notch if you want to see a really bad movie and laugh. If on the other hand you are after a decent horror movie, I would recommend that you DON'T GO NEAR THE DVD.

• A wonderfully wretched Grade Z horror gore schlock howler

  Woodyanders2006-11-02

  Since I'm a hardcore aficionado of Grade Z garbage I must confess I was really looking forward to this notoriously lousy piece of absolute grindhouse horror splatter trash. I just recently snagged a copy of this brain-numbing bilge on DVD and dared to give it a stare. WOW! This sure ain't your garden variety bad flick. Instead, it's a very special and oddly endearing sort of unbelievably bad flick. Let's start with the lovably preposterous premise: Prehistoric cult members Gar (some hopelessly wooden stiff acting under the incredible pseudonym of Crackers Phinn) and Tra (the equally woeful Barbara Monker) are banished from their tribe for cannibalizing little kids in order to gain eternal youth. Prior to getting the boot the wizened old crone queen puts a curse on the pernicious pair: they are forever doomed to walk the earth in perpetual suffering in which they age one year every ten years and must resort to further flesh-eating to become young again. Fortunately in the early 80's in Los Angeles Gar leaves the park the two have been living in and marries a hot, but snippy young lady (an early appearance by popular 80's horror scream queen Linnea Quigley, who looks awful cute, but can't act for spit) and has a daughter who he names Bondi (the adorable Tamara Taylor). Naturally, something sinister is afoot here: Both Gar and Tra plan on devouring Bondi's precious innocent virginal flesh when she turns 16 in order to achieve complete everlasting eternal life. Boy, now that's what I call an absurdly complex, convoluted and rather confusing story! Besides the gloriously gonzo narrative, this choice chunk of prime tasty celluloid cheese further boasts dreadful direction by Lawrence D. Foldes, muddy, shaky, vertigo-inducing cinematography by William De Diego, cruddy make-up effects, tacky excessive gore, choppy editing, a rancid score by Chris Ledesma, a threadbare, barely coherent and rambling script, sluggish pacing, a stupid shock surprise ending, and uniformly dismal acting from a pitiful cast (Meeno Peluce wins the grand thespic booby prize as an obnoxiously hearty young kid runaway while poor Aldo Ray is wasted in a nothing minor part as a writer), all of which are exceptionally atrocious. The film's single most jaw-dropping sequence occurs when Bondi gets abducted by three degenerate rapists in a van, but is saved by a magical amulet given to her by her father which causes the van to go off a bridge and explode! Another stupendous moment has Gar and Tra shooting crummy laser beams out of their eyes. And let's not forget the pathetic handful of moaning rot-faced zombies who pop up for the stirring conclusion. As an added bonus, both Linnea Quigley and Tamara Taylor have nude scenes. This sublimely shoddy stinker is a real must-see for devout fans of deliciously down'n'dirty dimestore dreck cinema.

• Don't Go Near The VCR

  Red-Barracuda2006-02-02

  Don't Go Near The Park concerns a prehistoric couple who are doomed to eternal dying by their tribe's matriarch. Their crime was incest and cannibalism. So, somewhat strangely, they are informed that they will age 10 years for every year unless, wait for it, they feast on human flesh. I feel that this punishment will not show these errant cannibals the error of their ways. And so it proves. 12,000 years later these aforementioned maniacs are living by a park in the U.S.A. where they are tasked with slaughtering a virgin of their tribe when the twin stars of the wolf flank the moon. By doing so, the curse will be lifted. To be perfectly honest, they aren't looking too bad for people who are 120,000 years old. They set about disembowelling random unfortunates in order regain their youth. Gar, the male half of this psychotic magical caveman duo, decides to attain a bride in order to impregnate her and eat their offspring at the exact moment of zodiac re-alignment. His technique for acquiring a wife is unorthodox to say the least – he stalks a woman and surprises her as she is coming out of the shower. Naturally, she does not suspect that he is a crazed psychopath and allows him to stay in her spare room. Shortly afterwards he stares at her in a highly creepy manner, she takes her clothes off and they are married a minute later. Gar prefers his daughter, Bondi, to his wife, "she's better than you, you bitch" he points out. But the bad atmosphere at home leads Bondi to hitch a ride with a van full of sex offenders. They try to have their way with Bondi but, fortunately, she has a magical red amulet - a present from her father - which makes the brakes of the van fail. Bondi is teleported out just before the van of perverts veers off a bridge and results in a hilariously enormous explosion. Bondi finds her way to a farmhouse where Gar's prehistoric partner, Tra, lives with a bubble-permed midget and a ponce called Cowboy. The midget subsequently discovers that the park nearby is cursed and is inhabited by a couple of magic cannibals, one of which is Tra, his guardian. On returning to the house Tra frightens off the midget and Bondi – the midget suffering a tragic two metre fall from a tree into a stack of hay. Bondi runs into the park where she is scared by a dog, she falls over and rolls very slowly down a grassy hill into the cave where Gar and Tra live. Bondi then encounters her dad Gar, fully kitted out in prehistoric gear, i.e. P.E. shorts and New Romantic make-up. He is joined by Tra and they show off by firing laser beams from their eyes and displaying the power to create fire with a wave of their hands. Skills that would've been worth using earlier on in the film if truth be told but what do I know. Anyway, things come to a conclusion shortly afterwards, I won't spoil the fun by giving away the monumental events that take place. Don't Go Near The Park was on the Video Nasty list and certainly has this to thank for anyone having an interest in it nowadays. It is a very bad movie. The acting is terrible. The music appears to have been taken from a batch of different soundtracks from other films and pasted in randomly. The editing is extraordinary – it is the worst I can recall having seen – scenes cut into each other suddenly, occasionally before a sentence has ended. Everything about it is bad. But this is not to be taken as a criticism, as it is heroically bad. I would far rather watch a deranged bad film such as this than a tediously mediocre one. One for Bad Movie Night!