The twenty-first century has seen a growing interest in geriatric horror, not just perpetuation of stigmas against the elderly as grotesque and horrifying but also exposure of the act of growing old as a horror in itself. Films like Drag Me to Hell (2009), The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014), The Visit (2015), Anything for Jackson (2020), and The Relic (2020) are just a few examples that depict the financial, familial, and mental distress and confusion that come with getting old in a society that neglects rather than nurtures its elders.
As in most things, however, George A. Romero was ahead of this trend with his short PSA film, The Amusement Park, produced in 1973 and first screened in 1975. Not a traditional feature film, it was commissioned by the Lutheran Service Society of Western Pennsylvania, who were troubled by the neglect of the elderly by the political, economic, and social structures they served all their lives. To encourage young people to help the elderly, the Church hired a young filmmaker who had done commercials, segments for Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, several short films, a romantic comedy, and a few horror films. But, as Scout Tafoya writes, Romero “was never interested in subtly critiquing anyone; he went for the jugular and told you he was doing it.”[i] Working with scriptwriter Walton Cook, he made the film so disturbing that some sources say the Lutherans refused to show it, and so it was buried until 2017. Adam Charles Hart, Visiting Researcher at the University of Pittsburgh (which recently acquired Romero’s archives) speculates that local churches may have shown it, however. He claims that the film was never lost but just too weird to be shown with any regularity.[ii] The film has gotten a lot of attention this summer since it landed on Shudder. Here, I offer a personal commentary on the history of the amusement park itself, West View Park. Read more
