Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things (1972)
R1 / NTSC DVD
VCI Home Video / 2007
Director: Bob Clark
Writer: Bob Clark & Alan Ormsby
Cast: Alan Ormsby, Anya Ormsby, Valerie Mamches, Jeff Gillen & Paul Cronin.
Review by Annie Riordan

An incredibly obnoxious theater troupe, all dressed in the height of 1970s puke-colored hideousness, takes a boat to a small cemetery isle. Their assholish and domineering leader Alan has some mean tricks in store, and sets about scaring everyone with an ancient grimoire, a couple of goobery friends in shitty zombie make-up and a spell he insists will raise the dead. But as the night progresses and Alan carries his defilement of the dead too far, the angry corpses finally DO rise up...and go looking for revenge.

The Golden Rule to keep in mind whilst watching this movie is definitely: “Patience is a virtue!” The first forty or so minutes are incredibly annoying. Nothing at all happens. The characters are the most unlikable group of shrill voiced, pretentious assholes you’ll ever clap your eyes on, and so when the zombie gut-munching shit FINALLY hits the fan, you’ll be itching to see every single last one of the vacuous little bastards get what they so richly deserve. It just takes awhile to get to that point, that’s all. But once it does, it actually manages to turn dark, disturbing and incredibly horrific pretty damn fast!

• Screen Format: Widescreen 2.35:1 / Color
• Audio: English / Dolby Stereo Surround Sound 5.1
• Subtitles: N/A
• Run time: 87 mins.

• Audio Commentary w/ Actors Alan Ornsby, Jane Daly, Anya Cronin & Director Bob Clark
• Memories of Bob Clark: A Tribute to the Late Director
• Grindhouse Q&A
• Confessions of a Grave Digger
• Music Videos:
  - Dead Girls Don’t Say No - The Deadthings
  - Cemetery Mary - The Deadthings
• A Tribute Video to Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things - Freak 13
• Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things Trivia
• Alan Ormsby Bio
• Original Theatrical Trailer
• Photo Gallery

Honestly, this is a classic...gritty and cheap as it may be. Brought to you by the same guys who would later bring you Deathdream, Porky’s, the original Black Christmas and A Christmas Story - you know, that one classic holiday film about Ralphie and his BB gun? - Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things definitely does deserve a viewing. It’s nowhere near as good as the films that would follow it, but once it decides to settle down and actually be a zombie film, it’s quite good!

“A classic guilty pleasure!”