30. EXHUMATION POINT: Digging up the previous one coffin at a tomb time.
Youngsters Should not Play With Lifeless Issues
Welp, bury me, I am lifeless.
Probably not, however yeesh. I will reduce to the chase: Bob Clark’s 1972 movie Youngsters Should not Play With Lifeless Issues may match the “exhumation” theme for right this moment’s problem, nevertheless it additionally has a few of the worst appearing I’ve witnessed. It manages to be very annoying, too, as if an early ’70s improv troupe dressed as Scooby-Doo characters determined to check out Satanic rituals. The primary hour of CSPWDT is a string of fixed one-liners that refuse to land. The movie’s lo-fi aesthetics and underground faculty challenge really feel could be forgivable if it weren’t so rattling boring—it is a zombie movie that takes eternally to come back to life.
That stated, you may take into account throwing this movie on and skipping to the final 20 minutes. It has a couple of charms, particularly if one considers that CSPWDT was launched amid a dramatic evolution in zombie filmmaking. (George A. Romero’s Evening of the Dwelling Lifeless arrived solely 4 years earlier than this movie.) The eerie backwater Florida setting is a enjoyable one, full with a misty swamp graveyard, and within the movie’s third act, a proliferation of undead freaks spills from each inch of the display screen. CSPWDT‘s greatest shot is its ultimate one, although, and never simply because it meant the movie was ending. A horde of zombies board a docked dinghy because the lights of Miami’s evening skyline gleam within the distance.
Essentially the most attention-grabbing facet of this flick is its director, Bob Clark, whose filmography could possibly be described as “unhinged,” or, on the very least, “eclectic.” CSPWDT was one among his first options, and he’d later go on to direct Porky’s, A Christmas Story, and Child Geniuses. It is cinematic whiplash.
Strangest half? Clark’s cult traditional horror Black Christmas was launched simply two years after the muddled mess that’s CSPWDT. Black Christmas is legitimately terrifying and even popularized a persistent horror trope—a homicidal maniac’s telephone calls come from inside a sorority home. It is one among my favorites presently of 12 months.
My recommendation? Neglect about this film. Go watch Black Christmas.
The Stranger is taking part in Scarecrow Video’s Psychotronic Problem all month lengthy! Each October, Scarecrow places collectively a listing of cinematic themes and invitations people to observe alongside and watch a horror, sci-fi, or fantasy flick that meets the factors. This 12 months, Stranger staffers are becoming a member of the enjoyable and we’re sharing our each day suggestions right here on Slog! Learn extra about Scarecrow’s 2024 problem—and get the watch listing—right here. And you may observe our each day suggestions right here! 💀
