Survival horror – Weekend
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Early in his career, zombie horror guru George A. Romero, who had already made history with Night of the Living Dead, made a “PSA” about the abuse of pensioners, commissioned by the Lutheran community. The almost hour-long film was eventually considered too radical and was remembered only shortly before the master’s death. However, even in modern times, “Amusement Park” did not quite fit into the action-packed (and full of topical comments) cinematic universe of the living dead.
“Remember, one day you will be old too,” warns 70-year-old entertainer Lincoln Maesel as he greets and sees off audiences in George A. Romero’s “Theme Park” (1973). A technique in the spirit of educational films or television shows, breaking the fourth wall and communicating with an invisible audience was loved by Alfred Hitchcock and the creator of The Twilight Zone (1959–1964), Rod Serling. In the case of Romero’s film, commissioned by the Lutheran community of Western Pennsylvania, which decided to draw attention to the unenviable lot of older people, it was an attempt at compromise.
That psychedelic horror about the horrors of retirement age, which the 33-year-old director shot, shocked Lutherans: the documentary prologue and epilogue were supposed to soften the resulting macabre, clarify what the author wanted to say, but, it seems, it became even worse. Perhaps Maesel, with slicked hair and a brown coat against the backdrop of a deserted park, as if hinting at the inevitable autumn of life, was unable to veil the array of associations with benevolent intonation. Too many horror films start out in a similar, rationalizing way.
The “Amusement Park” was used for its intended purpose for some time—it was shown in Lutheran centers—but very soon it was hidden out of sight. Romero himself never thought about him – at least until he met his third wife, Suzanne Desrochers, whom he met while working on “Land of the Dead” (2005). With her, he reviewed the “hackwork” from the time of his distant youth – filmed for the sake of money, either for a movie, or for food – a few months before his death. It turned out that a copy of the film was kept by one of the program directors of the Turin Film Festival, Julia D’Agnolo, who was friends with the Romero couple. Four years later, a foundation named after him restored Amusement Park, and it eventually premiered on horror streaming service Shudder. In a sense, the film did find its target audience.
However, 50 years later, the “lost” film was greeted with less than warmth, blaming problems with sound and lack of skill on the part of the neophyte cameraman S. William Heinsman, who five years before “The Park” made his debut as an artist with Romero in “Night.” Living Dead” (1968), and then played small (and often “non-living”) roles. In addition, the father of modern zombie horror (the director himself called the dead exclusively “ghouls”) allegedly went too far with the grotesque denunciation of social vices – a rather curious statement in the context of his low-budget filmography, where most projects lack gloss and grace. It is significant that both in 1973 and in 2021, many wanted to avert their eyes, hiding behind good intentions or love for cinema.
The film itself begins in a white room. A deathly pale elderly man (Maezel) in a light suit and with a plaster on his forehead sits on a chair. He is approached by an optimistic double (Maezel again), who is going to visit an amusement park and invites his peer with him for a recreational walk. He still leaves through the only door alone: the battered pensioner only warns that he won’t like it outside. And there is a celebration of life, a fair of consumption, which occupies an important place in King’s novels, and in the films of Jordan Peele (see “Us”), and in the impudent series “Euphoria” by Sam Levinson, depicting the wounds of a completely different (very young) generation.
What follows, indeed, is a macabre with grotesque sketches about how painful old age is: everywhere they don’t pay a penny, they charge exorbitant prices, memorable artifacts are exchanged for a maximum of five bucks, simultaneously pushing them to the margins of life. Romero and screenwriter Walton Cook, who co-starred with him in Mad Men (1973), are not just embodying a nightmare about retirement, but at the same time inciting the customer. In one episode there is a hint of pedophile priests, in another a fair church closes for lunch, like some kind of fast food stand.
The amusement park is not a place for grace: vitality and indifference, joyful consumption and hasty neglect are concentrated here. They are trying to turn everything into a show (there is, for example, a fashion show for pensioners), and to line up visitors or somehow sort them by income, age and other characteristics. The episode where a wealthy gentleman with a cigar deigns to have a meal in a restaurant and is literally carried in his arms along with a chair so that he does not see people starving nearby could become a caricature in “Crocodile” or the Pennsylvania Punch Bowl.
The filming location was West View Park, where 10 years earlier – in the summer of 1964 – The Rolling Stones performed in front of a hall for 400 people, but since 1977 it has been closed and empty. Today, Mick Jagger and his gang, of course, are a living reminder that veterans do not age at heart, but in general, over the past half century, the entertainment industry has finally fallen into the cult of youth. Also in the 1960s, “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” turned out to be a breakthrough film, as Robert Aldrich offered Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, retired after 50, roles more complex than grandmothers or servants. The mass culture of the 21st century has latched on to children and teenagers, practically ignoring the older generation not only as spectators, but also as characters.
The same ageist bias is hinted at by the episode in the fortune teller’s tent, when a young couple hopes to observe in a crystal ball “they lived happily ever after – and died on the same day.” Seeing uselessness and weakness, painful extinction – side by side, but not quite together – fill the hearts of lovers with horror and frustration. And again the unfortunate Maezel, the same age as the century that shaped the order of things, acts as a punching bag.
The reaction of Lutherans and film fans to Romero’s film looks similar, where the frame is filled with non-professional actors – guests of age-related boarding houses and volunteers – and the distortion of sound and a confused camera make you feel like you are inside a gray (sic!) suit. “Amusement Park” turned out to be a face-to-face meeting with old age in every sense: from the textured extras and the immersive effect to half a century of exposure, which they began to criticize, just as the elderly sometimes complain about habits and old-fashioned views.
This, however, is the funny thing: true humanity is more difficult than surviving in a zombie apocalypse, reality is uglier than a postcard and horror, and old age – remember? – will overtake everyone.
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