Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things

Bob Clark’s first film is also one of his most memorable, even though for some people it’s pretty bad. I don’t know why, I think it’s really fun. Alan Ormsby plays Alan, the leader of a theatre group who takes his troupe into a cemetery for some ghoulish fun and games. It’s all good and fun until the dead start coming out of their graves and the film turns into a colored version of Night of the Living Dead, with the troupe trapped in the caretaker’s home and fighting off the armies of the undead.
The production is cheap and takes place in little locations, but what makes the movie stand out from the standard zombie fare is it’s pitch black humor, and witty lines spoken by all. This is typical in Clark’s films, like Black Christmas and A Christmas Story, one example being the two homosexual ghouls. Also interesting are the cheap makeup effects, done by Ormsby himself. They look rotted and realistic, but without making it so realistic that it affects the satirical tone of the film. Ormsby would go on to make the makeup for other films like Deathdream and Shock Waves, and would go on to direct the classic serial killer film Deranged. So give a chance to Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things, you might enjoy it more than you might think.