It has been 11 years since the release of George A. Romero’s last film, Survival of the Dead, and four years since the death of the acclaimed horror director. In 2019, the George A. Romero Foundation and Suzanne Desrocher-Romero teamed up to restore, complete, and release The Amusement Park, a previously unfinished film that Romero shot in 1973. This week, Shudder releases the film to the public for the first time.
Most of Romero’s films carry a strong social message. Night of the Living Dead highlighted the dangers of racism. The Crazies brought up government corruption and the oppression of the common people. The Amusement Park offers its own insight into social commentary, as the film is essentially one giant metaphor for ageism in our society.
In a less veiled way than Romero’s other films, The Amusement Park starts out with a direct personal message from Lincoln Maazel, the film’s star, as he addresses the audience about the lack of opportunities and help that we’re offered as we age until it feels like there’s nothing left for elderly people. Maazel preps the audience for a trip through the park, almost as if it was a pre-ride intro video before getting on a popular-themed roller coaster at Disney. Before Maazel enters the park, he comes across an injured and exhausted version of himself, warning him that “There’s nothing out there for him.” Maazel continues onward, ignoring his own message of caution.
Within a short, 50-plus minute runtime, the audience follows Maazel through a chaotic theme park, showing many different ways the elderly are discriminated against. Ticket sellers take advantage by changing the ticket prices for older park attendees without them knowing. Maazel rides the bumper cars and, in a slapstick moment, witnesses an accident, though his account is deemed untrustworthy because he doesn’t have his glasses on. Younger, richer park-goers don’t want to look at the elderly Maazel as they eat and relocate to keep him out of sight, out of mind. By the time Maazel has finished his visit, we see an injured and forgotten man that is utterly alone.
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The film caps with Maazel retreating to the entrance, where he meets the eager version of himself from the film, and his former self ignores him. We understand that this continuous loop is the allegory for the ending and beginning of each day in the life of the elderly. Before he sends the audience off, he lets us know that he’ll be seeing us in the amusement park one day as time and age comes for us all.
The Amusement Park was an interesting watch when comparing it to other Romero films. Typically, the filmmaker didn’t come right out and say the message he was advocating for with his films, but this one hit right on the nose. Granted, as this was an unfinished film, I’m not exactly sure what would have made the final cut. I prefer when social commentary is masked within a film rather than explained.
In my opinion, explanation takes away from the impact intended by the commentary. Imagine if the ending scene of Night of the Living Dead was explained to us before we saw it, Regardless, this chaos of this film did a phenomenal job in effectively exhibiting the smothering confusion and systemic discrimination that the elderly can deal with on a daily basis.
Overall, while I didn’t think The Amusement Park was a fantastic film, the idea was important, and the psychological horror of it was resonating. The film just felt unfinished because it was, and I wish it would have gotten the execution Romero put into his other work. With that being said, getting to see more of Romero’s work posthumously was an unexpected treat. Even if it ends up being too slow for your taste, the short runtime offers a low risk for the potentially high reward of seeing a horror master’s last film.
The Amusement Park will begin streaming on Shudder on June 8th, 2021.
