Don't Go Near the Park (1979)

Dir: Lawrence D. Foldes

Starring: Aldo Ray, Meeno Peluce, Tammy Taylor, Barbara Bain, Crackers Phinn, Linnea Quigley

Here’s another one of those awesomely bad films that should’ve disappeared a long time ago. However, Don’t Go Near the Park survives because of its inclusion on the DPP’s Video Nasty list. It does make you wonder what all the fuss was about because, not only is this a really amateur waste of space, but there’s nothing particularly ‘nasty’ about it at all.

The movie begins 12, 000 years ago as a brother and sister are condemned to an eternity of old age by a witch after murdering several children. Fast forward to the present day, and the prehistoric pair are reduced to feasting on the guts of children to reclaim some of their youth. They’ve waited centuries for the planets to align and must now sacrifice a 16-year old virgin to capture eternal youth.

No really, stay away.

The trouble with Don’t Go Near the Park is that it has such a convoluted narrative but doesn’t have a clue how to tell it. Therefore we get a very dull and confusing film. For instance we see the brother of the ageless siblings rent a room and then attack his landlady. The film then jumps to them getting married (what?) The story implies that he uses some sort of mind-control on the poor woman but this is not really explained well. Then the film jumps to her giving birth to their first child. The movie just doesn’t put the effort into letting the audience know what’s happening and leaves everyone scratching their heads as to what just occurred during this short sequence.



"What? Is there something on my face?"
The one and only Crackers Phinn.

 

This amateur form of storytelling inevitably brings up a few hilarious, and quite bizarre, moments. For instance, Sixteen-year-old Bondi (??) inexplicably hitches a ride with a group of creeps who attempt to rape her. Thanks to a necklace her father gave to her, she is teleported to safety while her
assailants’ van flies off a cliff and explodes (with the tow rope still clearly visible). Also, during the movie’s climax, it’s randomly decided that the villains have the ability to, like, shoot lasers from their eyes (!)

There’s also surprisingly little violence here. All we get is a few moments when the – let’s call them vampires – attack a few kids that wonder into the park (well they were warned) and have their guts ripped out in quite unconvincing style.

A gut-wrenching scene

Horror fans will recognise scream queen Linnea Quigley (Return of the Living Dead and Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers) as Bondi's mother.

Aside from the few surreal moments, there’s nothing to really recommend Don’t Go Near the Park. It’s a really boring film that’s extremely light on horror and devoid of any sort of suspense.  I generally enjoy watching films that fall into the ‘so-bad-they’re-good’ category, but there’s no fun to be had here. For the Nasties collectors, this is on the lower end of the scale. Don’t go near it.