The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

This hodgepodge of ideas was hard to follow, largely in part to the inept editing. There was some decent gore, and bits of topless nudity, with the latter often being teased but not shown. I will say though, I was crushing on the lead actress. She portrays that adorable naivety that I find oh-so-irresistible - on the flip side, It's that same quality that almost gets her character 'deflowered', but thankfully she escapes relatively unscathed. Also, I really like the kid in this movie. The 70s wasn't shy about portraying kids genuinely in movies, ie. letting them curse, like WE all kid as kids (well, at least I did). In closing, even though this movie couldn't decide on a tone, I found myself rooting for the afore mentioned cute babe and potty mouthed kid, which makes this not a total loss.

These days, a visit to the local park might involve dodging drunks, knife wielding hoodies, drug addicts, or paedophiles, but at least there aren't 12,000 year old cannibals waiting in the bushes to snack on your guts!In trashy schlock horror Don't Go Near the Park, that's what is waiting for people who choose to ignore local superstition and wander into the wooded area that is home to immortal brother and sister, Gar (Crackers Phinn) and Tra (Barbara Bain). Cursed by their mother to suffer endless death but never die (?), these prehistoric siblings must eat the internal organs of their victims to survive, until the day when two Wolf stars are in perfect alignment and the sacrifice of a virgin descended from their tribe breaks the curse and grants them both eternal life.To ensure that they have a virgin of the correct stock handy when the time comes, Gar hooks up with a tasty blonde (Linnea Quigley), gets married, and knocks her up (all seemingly within the space of ten minutes): 16 years later, and it is Gar's daughter, Bondi (played by jail-bait cutie Tamara Taylor), who is to be sacrificed. When Bondi runs away from home, however, it looks as though she may escape this terrible fate—if only she didn't decide on the local park as her hiding place...This amazingly dumb plot is brought to life by a director, Lawrence D. Foldes, who is so inept behind the camera, it's a miracle that he took the lens cap off whilst filming, and a cast who make the acting in my son's nativity play look positively professional by comparison. That said, by some miracle, Don't Go Near the Park actually proves to be rather entertaining.There are plenty of unintentional laughs to be had at the expense of the pitiful dialogue. shoddy costumes, and dreadful effects, and the cheesy gore makes the film fun for those who enjoy their splatter (it was sufficiently bloody to win it a place on the official Video Nasties list). The film is also notable for Quigley's early role as Bondi's mother, which sees her actually trying to act (as well, of course, taking a shower when called upon). Further welcome nudity is supplied by young Tamara Taylor, who seems to get felt up by almost everyone, including Gar, some wannabe rapist teens, and an eight year old kid.The film ends in a suitably ridiculous manner, with Gar's sacrificial ritual going haywire, laser beams shooting from his eyes, zombies rising from the dead, and a twist ending that suggests that Bondi will carry on her family's entrails-eating tradition.Entertaining for all the wrong reasons, I rate Don't Go Near the Park an unbelievably generous 6/10.

Since I'm a hardcore aficionado of Grade Z garbage I must confess I was really looking forward to this notoriously lousy piece of absolute grindhouse horror splatter trash. I just recently snagged a copy of this brain-numbing bilge on DVD and dared to give it a stare. WOW! This sure ain't your garden variety bad flick. Instead, it's a very special and oddly endearing sort of unbelievably bad flick.Let's start with the lovably preposterous premise: Prehistoric cult members Gar (some hopelessly wooden stiff acting under the incredible pseudonym of Crackers Phinn) and Tra (the equally woeful Barbara Monker) are banished from their tribe for cannibalizing little kids in order to gain eternal youth. Prior to getting the boot the wizened old crone queen puts a curse on the pernicious pair: they are forever doomed to walk the earth in perpetual suffering in which they age one year every ten years and must resort to further flesh-eating to become young again. Fortunately in the early 80's in Los Angeles Gar leaves the park the two have been living in and marries a hot, but snippy young lady (an early appearance by popular 80's horror scream queen Linnea Quigley, who looks awful cute, but can't act for spit) and has a daughter who he names Bondi (the adorable Tamara Taylor). Naturally, something sinister is afoot here: Both Gar and Tra plan on devouring Bondi's precious innocent virginal flesh when she turns 16 in order to achieve complete everlasting eternal life.Boy, now that's what I call an absurdly complex, convoluted and rather confusing story! Besides the gloriously gonzo narrative, this choice chunk of prime tasty celluloid cheese further boasts dreadful direction by Lawrence D. Foldes, muddy, shaky, vertigo-inducing cinematography by William De Diego, cruddy make-up effects, tacky excessive gore, choppy editing, a rancid score by Chris Ledesma, a threadbare, barely coherent and rambling script, sluggish pacing, a stupid shock surprise ending, and uniformly dismal acting from a pitiful cast (Meeno Peluce wins the grand thespic booby prize as an obnoxiously hearty young kid runaway while poor Aldo Ray is wasted in a nothing minor part as a writer), all of which are exceptionally atrocious. The film's single most jaw-dropping sequence occurs when Bondi gets abducted by three degenerate rapists in a van, but is saved by a magical amulet given to her by her father which causes the van to go off a bridge and explode! Another stupendous moment has Gar and Tra shooting crummy laser beams out of their eyes. And let's not forget the pathetic handful of moaning rot-faced zombies who pop up for the stirring conclusion. As an added bonus, both Linnea Quigley and Tamara Taylor have nude scenes. This sublimely shoddy stinker is a real must-see for devout fans of deliciously down'n'dirty dimestore dreck cinema.

Watching a movie like "Don't Go Near the Park" is enough to make you stop watching movies altogether. Badly put together, with huge narrative gaps, and incompetently directed, this was obviously the work of people who didn't have a clue about making movies. It's a pity nobody told them "Don't go near the camera!". It must be said, however, that there are two or three gruesome scenes of cannibalism that might interest gore fans. 0 out of 4 stars - but it could also be 0 out of 10.