This one is more scarier than most horror movies.

It's like a documentary which is very enlightening.

A good two years after his passing, relatives of the great George A. Romero discovered and professionally restored a (short) movie the master himself directed in 1973 already. Evidently that, for many diehard horror fanatics - myself included - "The Amusement Park" promptly became one of the must-see genre events of the decade! Seriously, how could this go wrong? Especially with an awesome film poster like that, and the knowledge Romero helmed this little project during his most genius period as a director (namely in between the "Night" and "Dawn"),this was going to be a guaranteed winner!

"The Amusement Park" was apparently never meant to be an actual film, but more like an educational/awareness video message to make clear to younger generations that we are mistreating our senior citizens, and to urge everyone to treat the elderly with a little more respect and dignity. It's somewhat of an extended Public Service Announcement; - if you will! Of course, in the hands of the natural born rebel and anti-conservative George A. Romero, the concept immediately became a grim, shocking, and pitch-black social satire the producers never even dared to unleash upon the world. What a bizarre idea to hire Romero for a PSA-video, anyway. That's like asking Rob Zombie to direct a commercial for diapers, or recruiting Michael Moore to shoot a presidential election promo-video for the Republicans.

Romero's interpretation of the sadly factual and relevant social theme is nothing short of amazing, though. The film, which starts and ends with long speeches by lead actor Lincoln Maazel who elaborates on the subject, is overall extremely powerful, impactful, and very VERY depressing. Fancily dressed and in a joyful mood, our elderly protagonist hopes to have a fun day in a crowded amusement park. He quickly experiences, however, how he and other people of his age are constantly ripped off, patronized, humiliated, ignored, abused, and even physically hurt by all the so-called active and more productive members of society. Various metaphorical sequences are incredibly confronting and harrowing, like how the bumper carts turn into a recognizable traffic situation, or how elderly people are often denied to spent time around (grand-)children. It's a crude but eye-opening film, and it honestly doesn't even matter that it remained shelved for 45 years, because it is still more or less applicable today. Life-expectancy has gone up significantly, but for issue like loneliness and digital analphabetism are the new challenges.

'The Amusement Park (1973)' is basically a PSA regarding elder abuse, bookended by extended fourth-wall breaks that outright tell you its mission statement. It's considered 'lost' because the people who commissioned it were supposedly so horrified by it that they buried it, making sure it never saw the light of day. Recently, it has been unearthed and restored in 4K, making its way over to Shudder as an exclusive piece of content. For seasoned horror fans, the flick is somewhat of an amusing oddity. It may very well be worth watching just to see what a Romero-made PSA actually looks like. However, it probably won't hit home for most audiences, despite its good intentions and general technical prowess, because it simply isn't all that engaging. Its eponymous amusement park is allegorical for life, being fun for its younger visitors but not so much fun for its older ones. Instead of height restrictions, rides are restricted by health, wage and general social status. The bumper cars require valid licences, the snack stands give out paper grocery bags, the 'freak shows' consist of only OAPs. The picture essentially puts you in the position of an innocent and eager older gentleman who gets consistently beaten down by the park's unfair systems. It's a fairly claustrophobic watch that has a relatively strong sense of escalation to it. However, even though it should work well, it ultimately falls a little flat. As I said earlier, it isn't all that engaging. In fact, it's actually quite dull. It also isn't as scary as some people are making it out to be; it's barely a horror film, if I'm honest (not that that's really an issue). I wish I liked this more than I do. 4/10.