In 1973, the Lutheran Society reached out to a young filmmaker named George A. Romero and asked him to make a film about elder abuse and ageism. The director really only had “Night of the Living Dead” under his belt at this point in his career—“The Crazies” would be released later that year, and “Martin” and “Dawn of the Dead” were still five years away—and so when the finished product didn’t satisfy those who had commissioned it, “The Amusement Park” was shelved for almost five decades. It became something of a Holy Grail for cinephiles, a lost film that would likely never see the light of day. It wasn’t until 2018 that a print was discovered and restored in 4K by IndieCollect. The 52-minute film received rapturous reviews after a few screening events in 2019 and 2020, but it will finally be widely available next week on Shudder, the king of the streaming services for horror fans. Much more artistically ambitious than a typical cautionary tale, this harrowing look at the cruelty inflicted upon the elderly is a mesmerizing and terrifying piece of work from a master who took his assignment so seriously that it rattled the people who paid for it so much that they tried to hide it from the world.
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“The Amusement Park” opens with an introduction by its star, Lincoln Maazel, who would work with Romero again a few years later on “Martin.” He speaks of his age (almost 71) and how the people in the film that will follow are non-actors, mostly volunteers, many from institutions and low-income housing in the area they are filming in Pennsylvania. They’re people who have been dismissed by society because of their age, class or other factors beyond their control. Before the film has even started, Romero, never a filmmaker to be remotely shy about explicitly stating his themes, is directly telling viewers that these are the actual people they have been ignoring, not just actors stepping into roles. Now is the time to see these people and consider their plight even when the cameras stop rolling. His final words make it clear that this will not be some passive cautionary tale but a call for action that’s also embedded in a vision of the future: “One day, you will be old.”
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Maazel next appears in an all-white room. He’s exhausted, battered, and bloody. His white suit is dirty, and he looks close to passing out. A healthier and happier version of the man enters the waiting room and ignores the warnings of his future self not to go outside to the amusement park. “There’s nothing out there! You won’t like it!” he warns his chipper self. He doesn’t heed the warnings.
The film was shot at West View Park in PA, which is reimagined as a surreal nightmare where the rides don’t exactly conform to initial appearances. At first, it seems to be an ordinary crowded day at an amusement park, but Romero moves through his set in a series of episodic encounters that grow increasingly threatening. A man swindles elderly people out of their belongings in exchange for little money in between selling tickets for rides. Amusement park signs have been altered to fit the theme, insisting on income and health requirements to get through the entrance. One even says, “Must not fear the unknown.”
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Standard rides on rollercoasters and trolleys start to become auditory assaults—the jittery camerawork and cacophony of the park add to the unsettling tone. A bumper car ride becomes a literal crime scene when an elderly couple does what typically happens in bumper cars and collides with another car, bringing in a police officer to question if they should even be driving in the first place before castigating the protagonist for being a witness when he wasn’t wearing his glasses. Romero deftly builds the surrealism with increasingly bizarre encounters. After a sequence in which a wealthy man has his table moved, so he doesn’t have to look at Maazel eat, a young couple comes to a fortune teller, who has a vision of an elderly woman whose doctor won’t take the time to see her dying husband. As she pleads with him on a payphone, Romero makes it clear that nothing is more horrifying than being ignored when one needs help to save a loved one.
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In one of the film’s most disturbing sequences, the park empties, and bikers show up to literally beat and rob the older man. After his assault, park-goers return, walking by the battered old man on the ground as carnival music plays. Romero was asked to make a film about ageism, and he went for the jugular, asking viewers to question if they would help the man or go about their happy day in the park. It’s a brutal, unsettling scene.
“The Amusement Park” is a concise film (only 52 minutes), but Romero packs it so full of detail and ambition that it contains more to appreciate than most films that run three times as long. Romero was only in his early 30s when he made the film, which might have made him an unusual choice. That likely explains why the film so often feels like it’s pointing the finger at people of his generation as much as it’s trying to put viewers in the shoes of the elderly. It’s asking viewers not only to try harder when it comes to the treatment of the elderly because it’s the right thing to do but because they will someday be in the same position as the man who just wanted to spend a day at the park. The film ends where it began with a warning that the world is more dangerous than it looks from the entrance to the amusement park. Enter if you dare. [A-]
