Children Shouldn't Play WIth Dead Things

I wonder if Bob Clark ever looked back on his career after making movies such as A Christmas Story and the first two Porky’s movies on the horror movie Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things, or as it was later called Revenge of the Living Dead. This movie has a very good concept; however the lack of special effects and the horrible acting make this a movie that should have been called Nobody Should Watch This Movie. The main gripe and complaint that I have with this “Zombie” movie is the overall lack of zombies. The movie has a total run time of over 87 minutes and it isn’t until the 63 minute mark do we even get our first twitch of an undead finger and it is another 10 minute before the first actual death of the movie. That’s right an 87 minute movie about the undead and we get a grand total of 14 minutes of carnage by what appears to be 15 slow moving hulking zombies that for some reason have more intelligence than the entire crew of this movie.

The plot however is fair and would probably be much better if they explained a little more. It revolves around a troop of actors who have come for whatever reason to island where Miami buries its poor and criminals to try and resurrect the dead. The main character played by Alan Ormsby who helped co-write this film plays the director of the group as well as the warlock who is trying to raise the dead. Now what a stage director needs a pack of zombie servants for is anyone’s guess, God knows it was never explained in the movie. Once again if the plot had been worked on and they spent less time going over the same dialogue over and over again and of course added more than 14 minutes of zombies this movie probably would be a cult classic ranking up there with The Beyond and dare I say Day of the Dead.

This movie is poorly written and it appears it may have actually all been done over a weekend with no real thought to character creation. Every actor or actress in the movie plays an actor or actress with the same exact name everyone except the character of Terry who is played by Jane Daly. The only real acting it appears was by Anya who plays an individual who keeps warning everyone to treat the dead with respect and the main zombie character Orville Dunworth who is played by Seth Sklarey who for the most part plays a corpse in the graveyard and later in the house who never moves until the last 20 seconds of the movie. His lack of movement for over 84 minutes of the film is by far the greatest “acting” in the film. Some may say he is played by a dummy, but I doubt there was enough money in the budget for one.

Bottom line this movie is horrible and should have never been made, much less released to DVD where unsuspecting zombie fans might purchase it like I did. There is absolutely no saving grace to the film it has no camp value and is a waste of time. The DVD also lacks any features other than pictures from on set, a trailer (which actually makes this look like a good movie) and bios of Alan Ormsby and Bob Clark which talk more about them making Porky’s and Porky’s The Day After. Bottom line if you want to see all of the carnage in this movie has to offer without wasting your time watching the film watch the trailer below, it is 100% better than the actual film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MR-qZPhDazk