Language - English
Genre - Horror, Zombie, magic
A man in top hat and another that looks
like a ghoul dig up a grave, they attack the caretaker when he finds then.
The duo then removes a corps from the coffin and the man in the top hat
gets in. Later Alan leads a group of his friends off a boat and through a
graveyard towards the empty caretaker’s house. Alan is the leader of an
acting troupe and his friends are all actors in the same group. As they
walk they talk about the history of the graveyard with Alan telling grizzly
tales about the former caretakers and the occupants of the graves. When
they reach the caretakers they break in, planning to spend the weekend.
After some time Alan opens a large chest that he had brought with it, he
claims it is a magician's box. He puts on a cape and takes a book he
claims is a grimoire out and claims that they are going to raise the dead.
Treating it all as a joke the party go back out to the graveyard and dig
up the grave of Orville Dunnworth, they hand Orvel over the cross behind his
grave and, whilst Alan lays out some candle other party members dig up other
graves. Alan the reads incantations out of the book and, when nothing
happens he curses the devil. Other members of the group get in on the act
by seeing who can give the best performance and curse. Most of the party
return to the house, bring the corps of Orville with them whilst two others
remain in the graveyard to cover up the rest of the graves. Alan's behaviour
with the corps gets more and more bizarre leading to the rest of the actors walking
out on him but, as they leave the house they are greeted by the return one of
the their colleagues who was filling in the graves and hot on his trail are the
residents for the graveyard who have been summoned forth as zombies. The
party retreat back into the house and try to find a way past the
attacking horde and back to the boat.
The Acting in 'Children shouldn't play
with dead things' is deliberately camp and over the top as the main cast are an
acting troupe looking to get their next part. Alan refers to them as his
'children' (making them the titular children) and he is often putting them
down. There is obvious tension in the group which seems to get a lot of
outlet in the 'devil cursing' scene and after that Alan seems to have won back
some of the group who were slowly turning against him but, as his behaviour
with the corps gets worst those that are against him gain more support in the
group to the point where his threats of kicking them out of the play is a risk
they are willing to take.
Once the zombies appear in the film it
takes on a classic ‘night of the living dead’ or ‘Evil dead’ feel with the
group of protagonists trapped in a cabin with an increasing number of the dead
surrounding them, in fact, as with Evil Dead they also have one of them inside
the cabin. The zombies themselves are quite good and do look like the
undead corpse type and they seem slightly more intelligent than the zombies in
other classic movies, although they do swarm in the same manner they are able
to climb to higher windows and set up an ambush. The final scene of the
film leads us to believe that they either have more intelligence than
previously shown or it is increasing.
The Films Score is good at setting the
mood but i did find that, when the zombies were first rising the incidental
music was distracting.
Over all I found ‘Children shouldn't Play with dead
things’ a good low budget zombie flick.
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