Synopsis
"See you in the park, someday"
An elderly gentleman goes for what he assumes will be an ordinary day at the amusement park, only to find himself in the midst of a hellish nightmare.
Directed by George A. Romero
An elderly gentleman goes for what he assumes will be an ordinary day at the amusement park, only to find himself in the midst of a hellish nightmare.
Парк развлечений, 绅士游乐园, Парк розваг, O Parque de Diversões, 놀이 공원, O Parque das Diversões
The embodiment of everything that a nightmare is.
Captures human disarray better than most and features a performance for the ages from Lincoln Maazel. This is so incredibly Romero it hurts—filled with uncomfortable blunt realities and surreal pain where the outcome of a brief glimmer of hope moment towards the end made my cry.
Feels like a lost transmission from the back of all our minds. Important and thought provoking stuff, plus it might just be the best Twilight Zone episode never made but even scarier because it’s real. I thought this would be a quaint little oddity with a few rudimentary allusions about life from one of my favorite and most revered filmmakers but boy was I dead wrong—it hit me like a ton of bricks and I loved it.
I miss George so much.
Completely devastating film about the very real horror of ageism. Meant to be a PSA, this “lost” film shows a kind senior man go through all of the daily tortures the elderly face in our society. I used to work in an assisted living center so I think this hit me as especially frightening because I’ve spent a lot of time around what I’m terrified of becoming. It’s the unavoidable horror of becoming helpless and useless. It’s the cruel joke of the life cycle.
This is full of that classic Romero tension and paranoia as well as his usual social commentary that hits the nail right on the head. Not your standard horror film, but in many ways just as terrifying as anything else out there.
George Romero’s lost movie. What is said is that it was saved from 2 damaged 16mm films. The restoration was quite nice. George Romero’s widow stated that she believes that it was shelved because the organization that hired him to make a movie about elder abuse was just to edgy for their tastes. Which seems kinda funny because they must have not realized who they hired. lol It is like a PSA on how elderly are discarded by society, take advantage of and physically abused reflected in the setting of a theme park and can be quite bleak. You have to see it to appreciate it for uniqueness. It is currently available on Shudder check it out!
Orson Welles in the Twilight Zone.
Stare long enough at capitalism (or mortality) and you'll see either a horror movie or a sick joke. Romero, of course, sees both.
I would pay money to see a reaction video of the Lutheran church group that hired Romero to direct this.
What was functionally supposed to be a PSA on elder abuse in Romero's hands is the horrifying and hellish material reality of old age rendered into an expertly-crafted formal conveyer belt of drifting and assault and eventual disposal. At its best reminded me of one of my all-time fav horror shorts: The Telephone Box; which I won't go into detail about, best to go into that blind. anyway unbelievable that this saw the light of day even if it was decades later. "Just nothing... nothing... just nothing."
“See you in the park, someday.”
I can tell you that I’m never going to watch this again.
It was a fantastic commentary on the treatment of the elderly but I can’t, it hurt too much.
Jesus. Fucking. Christ.
No other horror master, not even Raimi or Carpenter, better understood than George A. Romero the thin line between terror and farce that defines bewilderment and powerlessness. The Amusement Park compresses his satirical chills into a dense short that doesn't so much move forward as constantly squeeze its baffled protagonist until he is propelled against his will. The relentlessness of the pandemonium makes the amusement park metaphor seem oddly logical as your brain is overloaded with the sensations of the elderly characters' increasing exploitation and destruction, a state that only wealth can ameliorate, and even then for only so long as they are slowly dispossessed of their goods on their way to being sped toward the grave. Romero throws in…
A Lutheran church wants a movie about ageism and hires the guy who directed Night of the Living Dead. He makes a highly effective and empathetically disturbing film that made me think twice about how I may be unintentionally treating elder people almost 50 years later, and the church buries the movie because it offended them.
If that's not everything wrong with organized religion, I don't know what is
Amidst the rush of the young and vibrant, and with crude surrealism and frenzied verite, Romero exposes the terrible marginalization of the aging. Commissioned by the Lutheran Church, and never straying far from its PSA roots, this is a horror of the mundane: A man's trip to a theme park as microcosm for the plight of the elderly. Terrifying if anyone dares to look.
Devastating
I had to turn this off for a while and take a breather it's so upsetting. Definitely an affective psa
Thank you PeepeeDoodoobitch for recommending this!