Los niños no deben jugar con cosas muertas

Con esta película de zombis, los espectadores no deberían tener las expectativas demasiado altas. Bob Clark fue uno de los primeros seguidores de La noche de los muertos vivientes George A. Romero, y junto con el guionista Alan Ormsby (uno de los directores de la estupenda película de terror Trastornado (Deranged)), que también se reservó el papel principal, terminaron una comedia de terror relativamente poco memorable, sobre un grupo de actores teatrales que cumplen una especie de juramento perverso de valor en una isla desierta. Sin embargo, bajo la dirección del maníaco manipulador Alan (Ormsby), los «niños» titulares juegan con «cosas muertas» y despiertan a los cadáveres del cementerio adyacente. Pero no esperes un infierno zombi desde el principio, los cadáveres reanimados no aparecen hasta el último tercio de la película, hecho que molestará a gran parte del público del filme. Clark simplemente se tomó su tiempo antes de mostrar al espectador el giro que desea ominosamente. Aun así, disfruté de la primera mitad menos interesante de la película con su densa atmósfera, y lo que vino después fue bastante satisfactorio. (16.03.2019)

Bob Clark was one of the first directors to pick up the gauntlet thrown down by George Romero, who not only fundamentally transformed the canon of pop-culture zombie mythology, but mainly used the walking dead as a catalyst for social criticism. Clark focused primarily on the latter aspect, so rather than horror, he presents a biting satire in which the zombies appear at the end as a form of divine, or rather infernal intervention. Unfortunately, the rest of the film conversely focuses on a heavily thesis-based and stiff depiction of the dynamics within a group of hippie bon vivants. As such, Clark and Alan Ormsby’s screenplay presents a caustic picture of the hippie community in the era of its decline, revealing that the internal workings of that group are subject to the same social pressures and power struggles as in mainstream society. Besides naïve and crazy people, the group is also composed of cynics, materialists and manipulators, with a charismatic leader standing at the centre of everything, though he gradually proves to be not only a manipulator and egocentric, but mainly his own construct, desperately trying to build a cult of his own personality and whose flowery speech conceals his calculating nature and systematic efforts to hide his own insignificance and pitifulness. Unfortunately, everything said in the film is delivered in an extremely stiff manner. Perhaps thanks to that, on the other hand, the excellent staging and dramatic elements shine through even more, particularly the final sequence, during which even the corpses themselves seem to marvel at the central character’s spinelessness. (01.05.2014)

Bob Clark may have been the first director to pick up the zombie glove thrown by George Romero, but that doesn't mean I automatically have to appreciate his contribution to the genre. The introduction of the movie is quite promising, but all hopes for an entertaining and interesting film will dissipate after a short while like steam over a pot, and all that remains are absolutely unbearable tedious dialogues of unsympathetic and annoyingly overacting actors. You wait for over an hour for THAT moment when the zombies finally come to life and give those annoying theater hippies what they deserve, but when it finally happens, it is brutally unsatisfactory. 1* for the atmospheric cemetery environment. BTW: Thank goodness Alan Ormsby quickly gave up performing in front of the camera and instead moved behind it and took up a pen. His full-fledged screenwriting and directorial debut, Deranged, which he unleashed upon the world 2 years later, is a whole different story! (27.01.2019)