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Ghost Canyon

Children Shouldn�t Play With Dead Things: 4K UHD
(Alan Ormsby, Jane Daly, Jeffrey Gillen, Roy Engleman, et al / 4K UHD Blu-ray / R / (1972) 2022 / VCI Entertainment - MVD Visual)

Overview: The set up: Five young kinky actors and their artistic director come to a desolate and nearly forgotten burial island, complete with a morbid history of MURDER, RAPE, CURSES and DEMONS.

Alan (Alan Ormsby), the brilliant but bizarre Director of the company, has brought them to this foreboding place to dabble in witchcraft; specifically to dig up a fresh corpse and use it in a ritual ceremony which is supposed to raise the dead from their graves.

The pay off: It seems as though Alan has really gathered his children here, only to play a practical joke on them and then to party the rest of the night away. However, the joke�s on Alan. His bizarre ritual ceremony really does raise the dead from their graves ... only they�re in no mood to party!

4K UHD Blu-ray Verdict: In 1973, a relative unknown director,named Bob Clark (who would go on to direct such toothsome fare as A Christmas Story, the original Black Christmas, and to a lesser extent, the Porky�s films) directed (and co-wrote the screenplay) a shoe string budget horror/comedy film, which was eventually released as Children Shouldn�t Play With Dead Things (although it did go by other titles in various other places), that for it�s time was an obvious homage (of sorts) to George A. Romero�s Night Of The Living Dead.

The plot concerns a group of young people, out for a night of debauched merriment. They take a boat to an island and arrive at a creepy old deserted house (is there any other kind?) which is located close to a cemetery. They decide to have a bit of macabre fun and cast some spells to re-animate the dead. Just to up the ante, they unearth one of the corpses (!) and have some deranged fun with it (much to the chagrin of some of the others, I might add).

After a while, the fun of the first half of the film turns to a night of horror as the dead do actually start to rise from the grave! The film then turns to a fully-fledged horror film. If the plot sounds familiar, you�re right. It�s kind of a precursor to Sam Raimi�s Evil Dead series (with some of the dark humor that Raimi infused into Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, which is my personal favorite of those films).

The film is cast with an ensemble of relative unknowns (but does feature low budget schlock horror-meister, Alan Ormsby, who co wrote the screenplay with Bob Clark, as the male lead). This is the kind of film that was obviously targeted for drive-in viewings, for that scenario mostly catered to an audience that worshiped cheap, low (or barely any) budget, cheese ball horror films (with plenty of blood and gore on tap, of course) and generalized exploitation fare.

As for the film itself, it was shot in 14 days on a low, low budget of $70,000. Clark employed some of his college friends on it, but here now on a wondrously crisp 4K transfer, well, all that was once cinematically shady and dark, unclear and fuzzy has now been gifted new life, if you�ll pardon the pun!

In closing, this is truly a great film within the genre. Had I seen this as a kid, I would have had nightmares for years. It�s not so much that the special effects are good, or that the zombies look like real walking dead, nor that the plot is especially believable. It�s just that the entire movie is so damned creepy!

The way it unfolds makes your flesh crawl. The zombies are really disturbing. And there is something about how aggressive they are that will stick with you long after the movie is over. A few years ago there was an announcement that Gravesend was going to re-make the film, but sadly Clark died in an automobile accident before production plans could get underway.

This is a Widescreen Presentation (1.85:1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs and comes with the Special Features of:

New 2022 Video Introduction and Q&A with Alan Ormsby
New 2022 � 90-minute Video Documentary DREAMING OF DEATH: Bob Clark�s Horror Films, with many new interviews with cast and crew
Full Commentary Track with Alan Ormsby, Jane Daly and Anya Cronin
Memories of Bob Clark: A video tribute to the late Director
The Los Angeles Grindhouse Festival, May 22, 2007 Q&A. A Video filmed in between a double feature showing of CHILDREN SHOULDN�T PLAY� and DEATHDREAM at the Beverly Cinema
Confessions of a Grave Digger: Video Interview with Ken Goch
Extensive Photo & Poster Gallery
�Dead Girls Don�t Say No� Music video by The Deadthings
�Cemetery Mary� Music video by The Deadthings
Original Theatrical Trailer and Radio Spots
New Special Liner-Notes Booklet written by Patrick McCabe

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