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Don’t Go
Near the Park
Directed by Lawrence D. Foldes
Released: 1981
Starring Aldo Ray, Meeno Peluce, Tamara Taylor, Barbara Bain, Crackers Phinn,
Linnea Quigley, Chris Riley
Running Time: 84 minutes
DVD Studio:
Dark Sky Films
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Petranella (Barbara Bain) and
Mark AKA Gar (Crackers Phinn) are two cursed cannibals who must eat the
flesh of the living in order to stay young. The one way to break their curse
is for one of them to make a baby and then sacrifice it on its sixteenth
birthday during a very specific cosmic occurrence (which only happens every 12,000 years
or so). Between eating people's guts and being a creep, Mark manages to father a child
named Bondi (Tamara Taylor) with a woman (played by Linnea Quigley) and
plans to kill the kid as soon as the time is right. When Bondi turns
sixteen she runs away from home because there just ain’t no love between
Mark and her mother.
Bondi meets up with an annoying runaway named Nick (played by Meeno Peluce)
and a hunky dreamboat named Cowboy (Chris Riley). They are hiding out in a
ghost town with Petranella who is also still up to her old tricks: eating her
youthful victims’ flesh to stave off her own aging process. A journalist
named Taft (Aldo Ray) who has been studying the two cannibals, tries to
save Bondi and Nick. Mark shows up on the night of the cosmic occurrence
to carry out the sacrifice but Petranella has second thoughts. These two
powerful 12,000 year old beings begin an epic (sort of) battle with Bondi
and her friends caught in the middle. And some zombies show up.
Don’t Go Near the Park
is quite a special little movie. It is both impossible to turn off once it
starts and a dang chore to sit through. The soundtrack is a hodgepodge of
library music (awful) and some distorted synthesizer wackiness (amazing)
that never meshes very well. The cinematography is incredibly sharp and
colorful but the scenes are so ineptly staged that at times in feels like
children’s theatre. Speaking of children’s theatre, this movie is all
about the kids. Once Nick is introduced, the film turns into an
afterschool special with some tits and gore thrown in. One thing that
really throws me off is the release date. This flick was either shelved
for 5 or 6 years or the director is terribly old-fashioned. IMDB claims
1981 but this one has 1974 written all over it.
Performances are uniformly cheesed out but everyone involved is quite
enthusiastic especially veteran TV actress Barbara Bain who tears the
screen a new one with her overacting. When she and co-star Crackers Phinn
(now that’s a name!) start shooting laser beams out of their eyes- well…
it’s brilliant. I really like Crackers Phinn. The dude is seriously
intense and his character is one freaky bad guy. One movie? Jeez, where’s
the rest of your career, man? Meeno Peluce of
The Amityville Horror
is irritating as hell and Tamara Taylor is pretty unremarkable but both
are devoted to keeping this rickety beast on the rails. Most surprisingly
is just how young Linnea Quigley (Night
of the Demons,
Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama)
is in this one. Unfortunately, her character disappears before the end of
the movie.
When a horror film hovers between awesome and mostly shitty with fits of
laughable terribleness, I recommend that the viewer just throw their brain
away and let the magic happen. There is gold to be found here but mostly
for people who are really into cinematic pain. The finale of
Don’t Go Near the Park
is worth waiting for but mark my words, you will be begging for this
fucker to end. Out of all the horror movies I’ve seen with the word
“Don’t” in the title, I think this may be the strangest.
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DVD Stuff
Wowee!
Don’t Go Near the Park
looks simply stunning in its anamorphic widescreen print. The colors are
vibrant and blacks are deep. There is some minor pixilation during the
dark scenes but nothing too egregious. The mono audio is decent with only
a couple of spots where the dialogue gets too quiet. Extras start off with
a bang with the awesome audio commentary from the director and actress
Linnea Quigley. This is a very informative track and worth a listen if you
like the film or are struggling to get through it. Other extras include
some extended gore sequences which should have been put back into the film
(damn it!), extended deleted scenes, and finally some trailers and a TV
spot for Don’t Go Near the Park.
Quotes
“Hey sugar, can I give you a
lift somewhere?”
“Where to?”
“Anywhere!”
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