HALLOWEEN HORROR: The Amusement Park (1973)

George A Romero's "lost" movie, 1973's The Amusement Park is a bit of an odd fish.

It was the only work-for-hire movie the father of modern zombie cinema made, commissioned by the Lutheran Service Society of Western Pennsylvania "as an educational film about elder abuse", but shelved soon after completion.

A print was discovered of this believed-to-be-lost film in 2017, restored, and was made available to view on Shudder.

Directed and edited by George A Romero, from a script by Wally Cook, The Amusement Park primarily features volunteer actors, or people who were actually involved in elderly care at the time.

In an interview, Romero's wife Suzanne Desrocher-Romero is quoted as saying:

"They [did] use it initially, but I suspect that they thought it was a little edgier than they would have liked."

Clocking in at just under an hour, the main story is bookended by stage actor Lincoln Maazel (who portrays the main character in the film) addressing the audience on how poorly the elderly generation are treated and how we should all change our attitudes to be more accommodating.

The story commences with a jovial Maazel entering an anonymous white room with a single door out.

There's another old man in there, looking the worse for wear, and groaning.

Maazel tries to engage him in conversation, but the battered man simply tells him there's nothing out there and not to go through the door.

Opening the door, Maazel - who also plays the key role of Tateh Cuda in Romero's 1978 vampire film Martin - sees a busy fun fair and steps through.

What follows is a metaphorical bombardment of this old man, with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, as he stumbles - increasingly deliriously - through a cavalcade of on-the-nose - but often still rather clever - allegories about old age. 

For instance, pensioners are seen queueing up to hawk their valuables in exchange for tickets to the fun fair rides; there's an eye test before you're allowed to drive one of the dodgems (bumper cars) and if you hit someone police and insurance company reps show up; when Maazel tries to be kind to some children he gets heckled as a "degenerate"; a young couple visit a fortune teller and see a terrifying vision of their future in a rundown flat, penniless, and unable to get the medicine they require etc

When Maazel tries to help fellow elderly punters at the fair, the younger - more numerous - visitors don't pay him any attention.

At one point he is hustled into an attraction ominously called Boot Hill, which turns out to be a grim physiotherapy centre.

A "freak show" just features old people, and when Maazel goes to leave, the crowd proclaim that "one is escaping" and chase after him.

There's a moment when Maazel is set upon by a trio of bikers.

Another scene has him being pickpocketed by a sleazy con-artist.

Even when it seems like he might have found some solace reading The Three Little Pigs to a picnicking girl her mother soon packs up and takes the girl away, leaving Maazel almost in tears.

Finally, the ground down and broken Maazel stumbles back into the white room, now the battered version of himself as his earlier self enters the room again, fresh and full of optimism.

Stylistically, I feel The Amusement Park owes a lot to 1962's Carnival of Souls, with elements of Stanley Kubrick's 1971 A Clockwork Orange,.

You can also see echoes of The Amusement Park in LQ Jones's 1975 adaptation of Harlan Ellison's A Boy and His Dog.

It's obvious from the get-go why the film's commissioners decided not to go with this peculiar oddity as their Public Service Announcement of choice.

It falls into the same broad category as the notoriously disquieting British public information films of the same era, but is considerably longer - and more surreal - than those tended to be. 

While The Amusement Park does get across its point about the systemic mistreatment and general abandonment of the elderly, it does it in a way that is more likely to turn off a general audience rather than inspire them to take positive action. 

Not because of its more shocking and dark content, but because of its art house approach of disjointed sounds and imagery.

As an amateur cinéaste, I found The Amusement Park an interesting watch (primarily because of who directed it), but I can't say it educated or inspired me about elderly care in any manner.

Additional research c/o Wikipedia.

Offseason (2021)

Marie (Doctor Sleep's Jocelin Donahue) is the daughter of late Hollywood actress Ava Aldrich (Melora Walters). When she learns of the vandalism of her mother's grave, she and partner George Darrow (Joe Swanberg) head towards the isolated island community where her mother is buried.

Arriving there, she is told by the creepy bridge operator (horror stalwart Richard Brake) that the island is about to close down for the winter, raising the sole bridge that connects it to the mainland until the worst of the weather has passed in the spring. 

Once on the island, Marie finds herself entangled in a disorientating labyrinth of strange goings-on, unhelpful locals, and general weirdness.

As all this is kicking off, Marie lets slip to George that, on her deathbed, her dementia-addled mother had told her a story of the island, that its original settlers had signed a pact with a demon to protect them from the bad weather that regularly lashes the place.

This being a horror flick, of course, you know that this isn't just the ravings of a sick old woman.

The problem with Offseason - from writer/director Mickey Keating -  is the major disconnect between the story, which is certainly solid although not wholly original, and what actually appears onscreen.

Ultimately, the movie is too enigmatic for its own good, hitting the audience with clichés when it could have devoted more time to drip-feeding us clues as to what's really go on.

It's a fine line between mystery and plot hole, and all too often what is meant to be the former actually feels like the latter.

On one hand, Offseason looks gorgeous (with its near-constant Silent Hill-style mists and attractive lead), but there are moments when we ought to be getting a better picture of what's going on, but instead it's hidden in shadow.

The dream-like atmosphere that follows Marie's wanderings around the near-deserted island community doesn't always work, as it often suggests that none of what's happening is real and thus has no real jeopardy.

A visual treat, the 83-minute Offseason owes an awful lot to HP Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth as well as the legendary black-and-white creepfest Carnival of Souls, but - despite that impressive DNA - the film still doesn't give us enough meat to really sink our teeth into.

There's definitely a great idea buried in there somewhere, but we don't get to see enough of it to really appreciate what I think Mickey Keating was shooting for.