3. Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1972)
An awesome title for a fantastic film - children should indeed never play with dead things. Asshole theatre troupe leader - Alan - takes his charges to a small island where lots of criminals are buried for a night of fun and games. He tells his "children" stories about the island and the stupid prick digs up a body he calls Orville and holds an impromptu seance to try and reanimate his dead buddy. Alan is disappointed when it doesn't work and he continues his taunting of the children. However, the island's dead do eventually raise from their graves and all hell breaks loose. An amazingly entertaining film which was shot on a budget of $70,000 in 14 days, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things is an effective little film. It builds up characterisation for the first part - Alan in particular is portrayed as an immoral, pretentious buffoon who gets his just desserts when the dead awake. His treatment of the corpse of Orville is so mocking and sacrilegious to the dead, gory death is the only option for his character. Throughout the film the tension builds so that you know bad things are going to happen - and they will be explicit. The pay off at the end is actually quite scary because director Bob Clark has spent so much time building the mood of the film into a menacing crescendo. A nice little movie to seek out if you haven't seen it yet and a wonderful example of what a low budget film can achieve with a bit of imagination.