Dawn of the Dead, which took his vision beyond pure horror and into the realm of grisly social satire.
Though Romero’s first decade as a filmmaker is naturally mostly ed for his two zombie movies, the director actually created some other unique works in the 1970s. In 1971 he released the little-seen comedy There’s Always Vanilla. He then returned to horror for his next work, 1972’s Season of the Witch. 1973’s The Crazies saw Romero fully back in his comfort zone with a very Living Dead-esque story of the military’s attempt to contain a viral outbreak. With 1977’s Martin, Romero gave his own unique spin to the vampire genre with the story of a young man battling bloodsucking urges.
But another movie Romero directed in the ‘70s has long been left off of his official filmography and indeed has been unavailable to fans of the horror director. Now Romero’s lost ‘70s film is back and ready to be seen. Shudder is set to debut a restored version of Romero’s The Amusement Park on June 8, 2021 and they’ve now dropped a trailer celebrating the big event. See the clip in the space below:
The Amusement Park is touted in the trailer as Romero’s most terrifying film, but in fact it’s not officially a horror movie at all. In 1973, Romero shot the 60-minute film on commission from the Lutheran Society as a PSA on age discrimination. But the film was never actually shown and has been unavailable ever since. It wasn’t until two years ago that Romero’s widow Suzanne Desrocher-Romero revealed that a 4K restoration of The Amusement Park was being made.
It’s clear from the trailer that Romero’s idea of a PSA on age discrimination is nothing like anyone else’s. Instead of delivering a straight-forward educational film, Romero crafts a surrealistic nightmare movie about a single old man finding himself lost and confused amid the attractions at the titular amusement park. According to Shudder’s synopsis, the man’s disorientation represents “the pains, tragedies and humiliations of aging in America.” Romero’s surreal approach to the subject matter was perhaps a bit too abstract and strange for the Lutheran Society, but fans of the director will be only too eager to visit The Amusement Park and take one last ride with the man who revolutionized horror (while learning a valuable lesson about age discrimination).
Source: Shudder
