Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Stephanie There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Mark Turner It wasn't until the VHS boom that I was finally able to see this film. I watched it and wasn't all that impressed having built up my expectations based on a poster I'd seen and word of mouth on the movie. Sure it was a decent horror film but by this time I'd seen three George Romero zombie films and countless others as well. This movie lacked the fine tuning of those when it came to quality of production, screen writing, etc.So now the movie comes out from VCI in Blu-Ray format. They've released it earlier in standard DVD format but this was a special edition. Has it improved in the 44 years since it was first released? Truth be told, yes it has. I was surprised at how much better it seemed after all this time. Not only that but the quality of the print here, remastered by VCI for this edition, actually made a difference as well. No washed out tones, not scenes too dark to see in and sharper than before, enough so that the titles seemed to pop off the screen.The movie is definitely 70s material with a hip acting troupe taking a small boat out to a mysterious island that director Alan (Alan Ormsby) says is haunted and filled with the dead bodies of murderers and criminals. The island does have a huge graveyard in it, one that we saw a gruesome ghoul of a creature digging in and attacking the caretaker. Alan moves his group through the wooded areas of the island, across the graveyard and to an old abandoned building that they break into.He has brought the troupe here with the intent of raising the dead with a book of demonic spells calling upon Satan to help him. At the same time what might be his bigger objective is to insure that all members are put in their place, beholden to him for a paycheck and willing to do whatever he tells them to. Their inclusion in this ceremony is just an example of his control over their lives.The group heads to the cemetery and digs up a grave, Alan speaks the spell in the book and…well I'll leave that surprise for those who haven't seen the film. Once that finishes he orders the group to take the body that was in the grave back to the house where he talks to it, ridicules it and basically tempts fate with his desecration of a corpse. Stereotypical characters surround him from the diva to the handsome lead actor to the Trippe backstage assistant who seems to see something mystical in all things. Eventually all come together when the spell that Alan uttered actually raises the dead and people begin to fall under their attacks. Just who if any will survive and how they can fight this evil waits to be seen.The first thing many should know about this film is that it was directed by Bob Clark, listed here as Benjamin Clark. If that name sounds familiar it should. Clark went on to direct the cult classic horror film BLACK Christmas, then created/directed the PORKY'S movies, the great Sherlock Holmes movie MURDER BY DECREE and eventually A Christmas STORY, that perennial favorite come Christmas time. When this film was made he was just starting out having directed only two other features by this time. What he accomplished here with a minuscule budget and an aspiring cast is quite good actually. There is some dialogue that is questionable when it comes to being believed but much of it rings true. You can actually believe that these characters are saying what was written. The hippie/Trippe portions that are found might seem dated at best but there were plenty of movies using that same style of dialogue at the time.The movie itself offers a few jump moments and actually does have some truly scary parts that will be sure to haunt the dreams of young viewers who are allowed to watch. The movie is unrated and doesn't include any nudity but the gore effects (quite well for the time) and mentions of Satan will make this a movie parents will want to offer supervised if at all. For most it will be a harmless creature feature, one that terrified their parents years ago but might seem mild for kids these days.Look, I grew up with the drive-in as a source of entertainment with new movies twice a week. Some were the best Hollywood had to offer at the time, some were low budget films that were coming out and many of the second features were movies that were there just to offer a second film. Those movies were made by people who loved movies, who wanted to make the attempt at creating something original and who wanted to see their efforts on the big screen. That the people behind this went on to make bigger films (those noted by Clark as well as Ormsby going on to write MY BODYGUARD, CAT PEOPLE and THE SUBSTITUTE) shows that in some of the smallest films there is talent waiting to explode. That they could make a movie this good with no budget speaks volumes as well. Kudos to VCI for making sure that a movie like this isn't lost and has received such caring treatment. If you love horror movies then this is a must have for your collection.

Cristi_Ciopron The cheap self-awareness of the script, direction and acting leaves the bombastic crassness as it is: rubbish, mindlessly goofy. Jeffrey Gillen does a less dis-likable role (than the other guys).For much of the movie, I hoped that at least one of the three actresses will undress; the sexiest of them, Jane Daly, is also the least good at acting. And none of the girls takes her clothes off.The score enhances the goofy eeriness enjoyed by some in the '70s. 'Children …' looks like a stage play, the youngsters act as if they are on stage, but there's an intrinsic goofiness; it's not that it feels stagy, but that the play is goofy. It ends with a ship of ghouls.

MartinHafer "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" is a waste of a great title. You'd think with such a wonderful name for the film that it would be a lot more interesting--but it really isn't. In fact, it's interminably dull and the characters are hateful at best! The film is about a group of jerks--led by a bigger jerk who is supposed to be a prankster filmmaker. He takes a group of unsuspecting folks to a cemetery that looks MORE fake than the one in "Plan 9" and plans to scare them with a fake resurrection. The problem is that he is 100% annoying and won't shut up. And, you keep waiting and waiting and waiting for something to happen. However, they are so annoying and stupid that you finally just give up and change to a better film. You keep wanting them to die (especially the main character--Jeez is he annoying). But, if you do wait, the predictable happens and you see the crappiest looking zombies in film history--and the payoff just isn't enough for having to listen to these idiots talk and talk and talk. All in all a cheapo film that isn't enjoyable because the acting and writing (if there is any) is so gosh-darn bad. My advice--stick to a William Grefe, Arch Hall, Ray Dennis Steckler or Ed Wood film--at least these are bad and fun to watch!

geminiredblue Back in the old days, there was a place called a video store. This place held things called videotapes. One day, while hunting around for a good horror movie, my eyes fell upon a copy of CHILDREN SHOULDN'T PLAY WITH DEAD THINGS. And picking it up, I wondered to myself: Is this a zomedy (zombie comedy) like DEAD ALIVE? Is it filled with tons of living dead and gore? More than thoroughly intrigued, I rented it, got home and popped it into something called a VCR. Guess what? This movie qualifies as one of the worst zombie films ever made! And justifiably so, in my opinion. First off, none of the characters is vaguely likable. They spend more than an hour just talk, talk, talking until they're all blue in the face, pulling pranks on each other and repeating such memorable lines as "I peed my pants" a thousand times. Finally, when the undead do rise, thanks to these idiots using sorcery, they're all holed up in a house (hm, how original!) and are then killed one by one. Is it a bad sign that I cheered every time a character met his or her fate? That was the first and only time I will ever watch the movie. Still fifteen years on, I remember that experience like it was only yesterday. Shocking to think that Bob Clark, who made the wonderful Christmas classic "A Christmas Story" directed this crap! By the way, the zombie make-up is pretty bad, easily on-par with BURIAL GROUND and ZOMBI 4: AFTER DEATH. Even treating it as an unintentional zomedy might be testing the limits of your funny friends and humor. Just be happy they never made a sequel, I guess. As Ebert said "For every bad movie, there's a good movie counterpart." That movie would come seven years later when Lucio Fulci released ZOMBIE. Both cover zombies brought about by sorcery (or voodoo) but ZOMBIE is infinitely scarier!