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Wonderful character development!

Thanks for the memories!

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

This movie tries to blend ideas from several cult horror flicks from the 70s and 80s but fails rather miserably at pulling it all off. A grating Italian-American family consisting of husband Frank (Salvatore Paul Piro), wife Donna (Felissa Rose, of SLEEPAWAY CAMP fame), their mentally-retarded son Sean (Danny Lopes), Donna's sister Paula (Ellen Sandweiss) and Paula's infant son Anthony (Marco Rose) are headed somewhere in their station wagon and decide to take a short cut through the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Their car gets stuck in some mud, Frank decides to walk off somewhere to get help and ends up stumbling upon a creepy old house inhabited by an elderly palm reader named Mrs. Leeds (Irma St. Paule). Mrs. Leeds claims to have thirteen children, but only two of them - Boy (Edwin Neal) and Judy (Christie Sanford) - still live with her. All three of them turn out to be psychotic. They kill Frank and then set their sites on the rest of the family; basically killing anyone else who happens to wander into their path. Oh yeah, and there's also some kind of creature ("The Jersey Devil") flying around in the woods killing people that we never actually get to see.The director has no problem citing his two primary sources; the POV floating-through-the-woods camera-work of THE EVIL DEAD (1981) and the warped backwoods family of THE T EXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (1974), here. Sandweiss naturally co-starred in the former; Neal in the latter. The character of Judy - a childish, deranged adult woman in pigtails who seems obsessed with babies - was copied directly from the so-so A MERICAN Gothic (1987). There are references to other horror films here too, if you want to look for them. What I had a major problem with was how moronic the characters were. Not only are they unlikable, they do one stupid thing after another throughout the movie. Some of the things that occur over the course of this film make absolutely no sense. And no, I'm not stupid enough to buy into the supposed "abstract nightmare logic" some people claim this movie has. Stupid is stupid.At one point, a policeman shows up at the sinister home to investigate. Ms. Leeds tells him that muffled screams he's hearing from the basement are a cat, so he just leaves (!), goes back to his car and is killed by the invisible flying monster thingy. The next shot reveals that the police car is parked within just a few feet of the stranded family's car... which two of the characters are still sleeping in! So let me get this straight. The policemen sees a car parked in the middle of the road but doesn't even check on it? And the people inside the car don't hear him driving up the road, see his lights or hear him pulling up. And they don't hear him screaming when he's being killed? "Nightmare logic" or pure idiocy? You be the judge.One of the characters survives the night and ends up in the safety of a hospital to recount the tale to police. So what happens next? Does the policeman do what all other policemen on the planet would do when faced with a potential massacre and organize a heavily-armed posse to raid the home? Nope! He just drags the survivor back to the house of horrors all by himself with no backup whatsoever. And the two examples listed above are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to "Yeah... right" moments.The locations are decent and the director throws in a couple of nicely-composed shots here and there (though the overdone POV shots get old after awhile). There's also a corker of a gore scene where a guy has throat cut and blood gushes out all over the place. Other than that, I didn't really care for this. The acting isn't very good, the characters are dull and moronic and the plot line is a nonsensical mess. I found myself more annoyed than entertained.

*Shakes head*... Why did I sit through it? I knew after the first five minutes that it was going to be utter tripe.I'm a fan of a lot of low budget horror but this really had no redeeming features. I sincerely hope that this is the last we see of this awful man and his total lack of talent. He should not be allowed to make movies.The acting wasn't the worst of it, not by a long shot. The script and direction is where it really falls apart. You will be continually shaking your head in disbelief at the shoddy and stupid turns that the plot takes.And it's not even funny. It's not even "so bad it's good". You may well want to kill yourself for sitting through it. It actually made me feel slightly physically ill. It's really that bad.Do not watch. If you feel you have to, see how you like the first five minutes. You didn't? Well, switch off and save yourself some time. Wish I had.

Wow.I have to say, I've seen a lot of bad films in my time, but not many that can rival Satan's Playground. And, it's not a good kind of bad, either. More like the "shake your head sadly and pity everyone involved" kind of bad.The plot is simply a basic, Texas Chainsaw ripoff. A group of people are stranded in the middle of nowhere and are killed one after another by a family of inbred mutant hicks. Of course, in TCM, the inbreds had to work a bit to take down their prey; in this movie, the victims are dim enough to walk straight up to the horror house one at a time, knock on the door, and ask to use the phone. One right after another, like clockwork. Oh, and there's a lurking monster - the Jersey Devil - thrown in to pick off the stragglers. Just don't expect JD to actually put in an on-camera appearance; that, apparently, was too much effort for this production.But don't worry about the plot so much; most likely, you'll be too distracted by the atrocious casting to worry about it. Our victims, far as I can tell, are a family unit - Mom, Dad, Sis, Sis' baby, and Autistic Bro. Took forever to figure that out, though, since Dad looks about 45-50, Mom looks like she's in her late twenties, Sis looks about 30, while A-Bro is established at 18, and looks about 23. The baby, however, is convincingly infantile. Much like the rest of this flick. (Yeah, I know it's a cheap shot, but can you blame me?) After you've wrapped your head around that, then you can marvel at how... busy the middle of nowhere is. As mentioned above, we've got four separate scenes of the principles wandering up to Casa Mutata, plus another, totally unrelated and irrelevant stranded woman pounding on the door (and basically being told to stand in line behind the rest of the movie if she wants killin'), random Satanists coming up on the weekend to perform unholy rites in the inbreds' front yard, a cop who seems to be patrolling in area (and doesn't bother to check out the stranded vehicle stuck not 20 yards from where he parked), and several cars driving up and down the backwoods dirt roads. One of which won't even slow down to help a fleeing victim.Nothing hangs together, or even appears to be trying to make any sense. Even if you're a fan of the badfilm, I'd recommend you take a pass on this one.

Horror director Dante Tomaselli is keeping the old school horror movie alive. You know, the kind of horror film that actually takes itself seriously in trying to scare the crap out of you. The kind of horror film that doesn't rely some much on computer effects or silly boo scares. The kind of horror film that concentrates more on creating a brooding threatening atmosphere instead of trying to make the next witty pop culture reference. Yes sir, the old school horror is alive and kicking in the hands of Dante Tomaselli. The story is about the Bruno family. A pretty normal family going out for a vacation in the middle of the Pine Barren Woods in New Jersey. They think its going to be a fun filled weekend with the family in a cozy little cabin, but when they get a flat tire in the middle of the woods things take a turn to the wild and crazy side. They encounter the Leeds family. A family of demented drug addicted freaks of nature who are interested in killing, maiming and making the life of the Brunos a living hell. Literally! Satans Playground starts out like a straight forward horror film with the family getting lost in the woods and all that and we get to meet yet another crazy demented family living out in the middle of nowhere. But thats when the normal, straight forward horror movie premise ends. After that it turns into a Dante Tomaselli movie and I loved that! To be quite honest, what I love about Tomasellis films is the dreamlike feel that they have. Even though Tomaselli aims for what others would consider a normal horror movie with Satans Playground, he still descends into his trademark hallucinogenic nightmarish world. So be ready for a movie that mixes it up. We get equal parts straight forward horror, and equal parts Tomaselli going crazy with his interesting dream logic and nightmarish images. He does a good job once again in bringing his nightmares to life.The performances were great all along. I loved seeing Felissa Rose disintegrate; she did a fantastic job of reacting to all the craziness going on around her. She dominates most of the movie with her solid performance and is quite obviously the lead in the film. Ellen Sandweiss who horror fans (myself included) know and love from Evil Dead gets a chance to once again run crazy through the woods as she did in her previous encounters with evil spirits in Sam Raimis horror classic . She also turns in an interesting performance as she goes insane looking for her lost baby. The most interesting performance in the film comes from the most unexpected of places: Irma St. Paul. She plays the leader of the crazy family and does a memorable take on the crazy mother role. She snorts coke, she hammers people with sledge hammers and she lies to the cops like a pro. I really enjoyed her character and would love to see her in another horror movie soon. Christie Sanford plays a deaf and mute women and Sanford effectively channels evil almost as perfectly as she did in Tomasellis first film Desecration in which she played Sister Madeline, the evil demonic nun. She has that evil cackle of a laugh and that demented look thats sure to spook anyone. Here she plays a child like killer who wears pony tails and walks around in her Pijamas bludgeoning people with a sledgehammer.Speaking of sledgehammers, I was a bit disappointed by the absence of gore in this film. Though Tomaselli has never been an extremely gory director ala Lucio Fulci, (Tomaselli tends to focus more on the horrors of the mind) I was expecting a bit more gruesomeness to take place on screen. As it is, there are killings and mayhem, but most of the time they happen off screen or are suggested. Except of course for that one gloriously gory scene that makes up for it. Wow when that scene came on I was cheering! As much as I like Tomasellis films I must admit that this movie had a glitch or two. There's a couple of things that I just could not pass up. I know that cops are often times portrayed in films as being completely incompetent, but in this movie they really take the taco. The way the cops act in this film seemed completely unrealistic to me. Or maybe the cop on this film was just a real idiot or something.Watching this movie with Dante Tomasellis audio commentary on will not only help you understand many of the films unexplained plot points (like the Leeds family true nature) and apparent logic gaps but its also a glimpse into a horror directors mind. This audio commentary is the way a real audio commentary should be like. Very scene specific! Rarely does Tomaselli diverge into talking about things we don't care about. He is really into his films, really into his world and what he is trying to convey through his films. So I highly recommend that after you watch the film, you watch it again but with the directors audio commentary. So in conclusion, this movie isn't perfect, its got a few glitches here and there. But it is a highly entertaining film with good performances. Plus its just fun, in Tomasellis own style. It has that old school charm of a 70s horror film. Its like taking The Evil Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween and The Shinning and adding that twisted Tomaselli touch. No unrealistic CGI, no WB teenage stars. Satans Playground is low tech, old school horror, and it shows that a lot can be done with very little money. With a budget of roughly 500,000 I think that Tomaselli achieved a heck of a lot. I cant wait to see what he will do next!