“One day you will be old.”
Doesn’t sound so ominous, does it? That one sentence, spoken by the great Lincoln Maazel at the beginning of George A. Romero’s long-lost The Amusement Park echoes throughout the rest of the film. It is both a reminder and a warning. A cautionary tale for the young and a bitter mirror for the elderly.
Romero made The Amusement Park in the early ‘70s as a PSA for the Lutheran Church to raise awareness about elder neglect and abuse. I think they were expecting something a little more… churchy. I guess they didn’t realize that when you hire the director of Night of the Living Dead to make a statement, you get more than you bargained for. In some ways, it is his most haunting and terrifying film. Free from the constraints of a simple narrative structure, Romero was able to create a waking nightmare scenario dripping with symbolism, irony, and cruelty. The church shelved the finished product, citing it was too disturbing, and who could blame them, really?
As a jaded horror fan, I must admit it is one of the most disturbing films I have ever seen.
That isn’t hyperbole. The way Romero was able to recreate the sensation of being trapped inside of a nightmare you can’t escape is rather incredible. I can count on one hand the number of films that have left me in a state of shock, sickness, and fear. It is a movie that will make you scream, first out of fear, then out of anger.
I won’t spoil the specifics, but I’ll give you the broad strokes. Maazel is a kindly old man who despite numerous warnings, goes into a seemingly harmless, even joyous amusement park. He soon learns it is an ominous death trap where the elderly are ridiculed, marginalized, imprisoned, and left to die. Each one of the attractions on the outset seem to offer fun, solace, and happiness, but they all have their own pitfalls, causing the elderly riders much inconvenience, shame, and regret.
I loved the way Romero makes the viewer feel as if they are in the grip of a nightmare. The use of oversized props, repeated sequences, and subliminal appearances of a shrouded figure heighten the already intense atmosphere. Maazel, who is incredible, is not only our battered main character, but also an audience surrogate. The closer you are to his age, the more you will feel his pain, exhaustion, and fear. Heck, I’m in my early ‘40s and I was having panic attacks throughout this thing.
Not only is this a wonderful piece of cinema archeology (I can’t imagine this working half as well if it didn’t look like a ‘70s home movie that escaped from Hell), but it is also a treat for fans of George A. Romero. He is clearly having a field day sprinkling in all his visual trademarks, peppering the screen with his usual stock players (he even has a cameo himself), and drenching the film with his signature irony.
This is an angry film. It is a condemnation of elder neglect and abuse. The wraparounds featuring Maazel as himself offer some hope, but not much. The reason it works so well is that at its heart, The Amusement Park is a good old-fashioned Christian Scare Film. Scare Films don’t work if the audience isn’t scared. And brother, you ain’t never been scared like this!
One of the scariest things about The Amusement Park? It was filmed in 1973 and nothing has changed.
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