Last year the late George Romero‘s wife, Suzanne Desrocher-Romero, had teased that a largely unseen film Romero shot in ’73 was going to be restored and released. The 60-minute film is titled The Amusement Park, and it’s actually a PSA on age discrimination that Romero was hired to make early in his career. It was filmed for TV but never actually released.
In The Amusement Park, which was written by Wally Cook, an elderly gentleman sets out for what he thinks will be a normal day at an amusement park and is soon embroiled in a waking nightmare the likes of which you’ve never seen.
The George A. Romero Foundation began crowd-funding the film’s restoration and eventual release late last year, and it just premiered this past Saturday at Pittsburgh’s Regent Square Theater during Romero Fest!
While Bloody didn’t have anyone in attendance, a reddit user was on hand and shared his thoughts on the film, which he would call “a horror movie” as “it has a similar type of dark view of humanity as Romero’s other work.”
He writes:
“In Pittsburgh we’re having a week-long Romero fest, and almost all his movies are being shown. Today I went to “Day” (had never been to it in the theater) with Lori Cardille and John Amplas doing a Q&A and Romero’s widow introducing (the Streiners and probably some others were in attendance too).
“After that was the “world premiere” of a little-viewed 1973 hour-long movie that Romero directed for hire by Lutheran Services. It was intended to show the plight of the elderly as far as financial issues, loneliness, lack of respect – sort of a PSA. I guess the story is that what he made kind of turned off the company and it disappeared. Only a few people have viewed it over the years, and Romero showed it to his wife a few weeks before he passed. He isn’t credited as writer, but I’m sure he had a hand in that.
“The movie is very good. It’s an extremely surreal, kaleidoscopic view of an old man who goes to an amusement park, although the park is really a metaphor for society at large. It starts out with the man meeting himself in a room, but this version of himself is bloody, dirty, injured, and hopeless, and he tells himself not to go outside. At the park, old people hock their valuables at the gate for some ride tickets. Various absurd or symbolic scenes take place, and the man suffers many indignities. I don’t know why people need a label, but I would call this a horror movie despite what the presenter said. It has a similar type of dark view of humanity as Romero’s other work.“
Follow the George A. Romero Foundation for updates and future screening information!
