GEORGE A ROMERO'S "THE AMUSEMENT PARK" U.K. BLU RAY REVIEW

Ha! Old people. Aside from their (generally) outmoded views on race, sexuality, culture, and their inability to master micro-technology, there’s not really anything particularly funny about them. It must be utterly dreadful being a passenger to the betrayal of time - - a betrayal that renders walking up a flight of stairs to take a piss a singular feat of endurance. Harangued, dis-respected, neglected, unable to make your body respond to the simplest commands without being worried you’re going to fall and/or shit yourself, getting old fucking sucks. Such is the subject matter of GEORGE A. ROMERO’s “lost” film THE AMUSEMENT PARK; an absurdist, Kafka-esque nightmare of swirling, nauseating allegory.

LINCOLN MAAZEL plays an un-named, elderly gentleman who opts to take himself on a trip through an amusement park only to find himself beset on all sides by an increasingly bizarre series of events which leave him battered, bruised and embittered. He will encounter, and bear witness to, a string of micro-cosmic examples of the prejudice and mistreatment experienced by the elderly who have neither the money nor the social standing to care for themselves. The results are starker and more deeply affecting than you might think.

Originally commissioned by the Lutheran Society of Pennsylvania to raise awareness of elderly abuse, ROMERO produced an altogether more frightening and experimental film than they were prepared to receive. By 1973, and only widely known as the writer/director responsible for NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, Romero had been steadfastly assembling a fine portfolio of off-beat, socially conscious and darkly satirical ruminations on American life with films such as THERE’S ALWAYS VANILLA, SEASON OF THE WITCH, and THE CRAZIES. So, while THE AMUSEMENT PARK might appear at first glance to be something of an oddity in Romero’s back catalogue, it was very much in-keeping with the kind of work he was producing at the time. It’s true to say that it succeeds in cutting to the quick in a much shorter space of time (the film clocks in at just under an hour, after all) than something like The Crazies, but suffers at times from being a lot less subtle and a little too on-the-nose. In all fairness, one of Romero’s strengths was always his editing, and his ability to craft coherent stories from a seemingly random series of frenetic shots is a skill that serves him well where The Amusement Park is concerned.

To the untrained eye, it might seem unnecessary for SHUDDER to be bringing the film to home video when they have exclusive streaming rights and therefore no reason to ever remove it from their platform, but if you stop and think about it for a second, we should be thankful that their perseverance in bringing physical media to the masses is as strong as ever (though I do wish they’d stop putting the ROTTEN TOMATO’S “CERTIFIED FRESH” labels on their cover art). Despite boasting a 4K transfer, buyers must keep it in mind that this restoration was carried out on the original 16mm film elements which, according to the director's wife and the supervisor of its new 4K restoration, Suzanne Desrocher-Romero, were utterly riddled with damage.

In terms of special features, the best of the bunch would be a recent interview with Suzanne Desrocher-Romero (wife of the late director, and the supervisor of its new 4K restoration) which features her speaking candidly about her husband's career, receiving the 16mm print and DVD transfer copy of the film in 2017, the difficult task of restoring its almost fatally damaged source materials, and much more. Alongside this we have feature commentary from actor MICHAEL GORNICK; a frequent ROMERO collaborator who provides a warm and casual commentary full of insight about the original production, its history, contributions to other Romero films, and memories of the director.