Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (1972)

"The dead are losers." - Alan

A group of idiots spend the night in a cemetery, digging up graves and trying to find zombies.
Starring: Alan Ormsby, Jeff Gillen, Jane Daly, Valerie Mamches

Link to IMDB

 A grave with a view.

Six friends from a theater group have gone out to an old cemetery in the middle of the night to do some good old-fashioned grave robbing. Alan is the leader, forcing his student actors Jeff, Val, Anya, Paul, and Terry to go along with his twisted adventure. Alan's a real loathsome jerk, and even all his friends agree on this fact.
The atmosphere gets spooky as they settle into an abandoned house near the cemetery while Alan prepares to perform a satanic ritual, in hopes of raising the dead!



Some suspense builds as a shadowy figure is creeping around, but it's been 20 minutes and nothing has happened yet. What's interesting is that much of the dialog seems rather peculiar. There's something about it that just seems so randomly pieced together, and it provides some laughs at how dated and amateur it sounds.
Finally, Alan puts on his wizard robe and digs up a corpse, and then proceeds to pull an impressive prank. That's right, the entire night was just one big ruse to scare his friends. Everyone's mad at Alan, but he still thinks the satanic ritual would be fun to try anyways, you know, since he has an open grave handy... But it doesn't seem to conjure any demons or monsters.

"Get out of the grave, Alan, and let an artist show you how to call a curse down on Satan." - Val

Cozy with Orville

This is where things start getting truly bizarre. The grave they opened did have a corpse in it (a poor soul named Orville,) and Alan convinces everyone to take the body to the house and party with it. What the hell is going on!? Alan seems to be pushing his jokes too far, and it starts stressing out the rest of the gang.
This was made a few years after the Manson Family murders and I can't help but see some social commentary about cults here, as the group becomes divided over Alan's questionable leadership.
Anyways... The third act is when we finally get a horde of killer zombies attacking! This segment of horror is actually quite well done, with real tense moments as the gang tries to survive the night.
It took forever to get to the zombies, but the wait was worth it!


Despite a whole lot of nothing for most of the movie, I never could take my eyes off the screen. It's just delivered so damn weird that I had no idea what to expect next. Perplexing, yes, but never completely boring.

Be sure not to miss:
- Judging by the ambient sounds, the forest seems to have a serious infestation of loons.
- Jeff's bladder.
- The only thing funnier than Val's insults at Alan, are Alan's insults at Satan. That scene alone is worth the ticket price.
- This is an early movie by Bob Clark.
- Rats enough!

Internet review:
"Irredeemably wicked and bizarre, but really somehow very enjoyable." - roddmatsui

Should I watch it?
Yes, it's worth seeing, once you settle into the rhythm of what is (and isn't) happening.

Where can I find it?
Use the stagevu link here. The version on YouTube is made un-watchable by rotoscope correction.

Children Shouldn't Play gets...