Customer Reviews

Satan's Playground

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

...but not by much.

Pros
The soundtrack: The best thing about this film is the sound. It is genuinely creepy at times and sets an aural mood that many films miss (I'm thinking of the bombastic sound of popular audience modern genre movies like Van Helsing). The soundtrack deserves a better movie.

Not showing the Jersey Devil: The main beastie is never shown (although we do get plenty of cliched monster POV shots). Given the low budget of the movie and the nature of the cons (see below) any creature would have undoubtedly looked horrible (as opposed to horrifying).

The setting: The Pine Barrens lend themselves to unsettling imagery and the director can, at times, compose some nice shots.

The plot: The basic premise - that the Jersey Devil and the specters of the Leed's clan still haunt the woods - has promise and the flow of the plot - stupid vacationers get lost and are picked off one by one - while a standard of horror films, is a standard because it still works. People often complain about characters in movies like this doing unrealistic things (e.g., wandering off by themselves, going back to a house they narrowly escaped from). In reality, of course, people probably wouldn't do this sort of thing...and they also wouldn't encounter flying monsters or the ghosts of people dead for 300 years.

Cons - unfortunately, everything else in this movie is pretty bad.

Acting: The actors are just not that good. It was just painful watching endless scenes of people either running about screaming or mugging for the camera.

The villains: The Leed's family doesn't come across as creepy...just annoying. In part, this is because of the bad acting. In part, it is because an old woman and two grinning, giggling, mentally and physically handicapped, middle-aged people are not the stuff of nightmares. They have no personality. Also, they mainly kill people with what looks like a croquet mallet. Sorry, but if you are trying to make a throw back to the slasher movies of the 70s and 80s, stick with a chainsaw; it is a classic for a reason.

Mrs. Leeds: One thing the director needs to be told; close-ups of an old woman's face do not equal transcendent horror.

Cinematography: While one can - and should - make allowances for lower budget movies, this film is still poorly shot. Little visual tension is built and, while the Pine Barrens are interesting visually, most of the movie takes place in a house.

Boring cliches: Cliches are not necessarily bad. The whole wandering off alone is a genre standard and yet still works to some degree because that helps build the feel of the "alone in a haunted house" feel that these films try to achieve. However, minutes spent watching some woman run about in the woods screaming is a cliche that is not entertaining.

Story holes" While the basic plot has some promise, the actual story has some numerous "WTF" moments. I'll use on as an example. Our protagonists' car breaks down on a deserted road. One by one, people wander off. At some point, a police officer shows up in at the haunted house then heads back to his car and is attacked by the Jersey Devil. Fine...except in a later shot we see that the police car is parked about 30 meters from the protagonists' car...and that the officer apparently ignored this vehicle (and the woman sitting inside at the time) and that she never heard the officer being mauled.

Summary: Basically, this is a waste of time and money. While there are a few moments when a truly creepy mood is created, they are so few and far between - and the filler is so bad - that they are simply not worth the effort. The film is not frightening, it is not particularly gory, it is hampered by poor acting and a somnabulant pace and the story has many, many problems. A Jersey Devil movie certainly has promise...but this one is not it.

Boring and horrible even by B Movie standards. Why did they even bother making it?
It's Just a bunch of Jersey/New York Trash with annoying accents. Nothing Scary.

Okay... this movie is a waste of film. Boring to say the least. Terrible acting, no scares at all, no real monster shots, and honestly nothing worth EVER replaying this movie for....I stress the EVER part. I've seen a huge amount of really bad horror movies but this one doesn't even get good b-movie laugh credit. Throw it out, burn it...please do anything but watch this horrific piece of garbage. If it were possible to give a lower rating I would!

Do not rent this if you love horror movies.
It was boring from begining to end. Nothing ever happens in it, nothing. I am a huge horror fan-30 days of nights, the devils rejects, Repo: the genetic opera. This was on the level to me, where I was clenching my teeth because I did not want to finish it. But I always finish a horror movie once I start it. I have to go put my mouth gaurd in now.

<strong>Satan's Playground</strong> (Dante Tomaselli, 2006)

I have long been a defender of Dante Tomaselli's work, having seen, and liked, both 1999's <em>Desecration</em> and 2002's <em>Horror</em>. I grant you, Tomaselli's movies are an acquired taste, even if you're used to no-budget horror with amateurish special effects and bad acting, but let's face it: watching a Dante Tomaselli movie on a loop for an entire week is better than watching one minute of pretty much any movie that has ever been produced by The Asylum. You know this is true. And so we come to Tomaselli's third feature, <em>Satan's Playground</em>. It's got some of the Tomaselli hallmarks (most notably, the fact that very little of this makes sense, as if Tomaselli woke up from a nightmare, transcribed it, and then never revised), but this movie had a bigger budget, got some name stars, and has a more straightforward plot than usual. It may have been an attempt to take the Tomaselli name to a wider audience. If so, I think it failed pretty miserably, but if you're an established Tomaselli fan, this is good stuff.

We start off with a family driving through the New Jersey woods. Pieces of a family, anyway. There's grandpa (<em>Sleepers</em>' Salvatore Paul Piro), his two daughters Donna (<em>Sleepaway Camp</em>'s Felissa Rose) and Paula (<em>The Evil Dead</em>'s Ellen Sandweiss), and Paula's infant son Anthony (Marco Rose). I'm not entirely sure where they're going; if it's mentioned, I don't remember. In any case, they break down in the woods, there's a house nearby, you know the drill. That scenario never ends well. In this case, the house is inhabited by a psychotic palm reader with a taste for human flesh and her crazy kids, who take the family in one by one as they go looking for help.

Despite having some actors anyone in the horror community is going to be familiar with (Raine Brown also turns up in a small role), if you ever wondered why Felissa Rose hasn't done much acting outside the Sleepaway Camp movies or Ellen Sandweiss didn't make a movie between 1982 and 2006, watching this will tell you. Still, bad acting is to be expected from a Tomaselli joint, as are the inevitable plot holes and bits that simply don't make sense. And if you take this with the nightmare angle I described earlier, you may be able to get your head around it. There are precious few of us who can, but you may be one. ***

"Satan's Playground" is surreal garbage, a waste of celluloid and an idiotic crime against horror cinema. It has a totally convoluted plot. It has idiotic, poorly-written, unlikable, and anyeurism-inducingly annoying characters. Tension is non-existant. Special FX are non-existant, and the hyped-up Jersey Devil appears as nothing more than a poorly-rendered CGI flash. "Evil Dead" alluminite Ellen Sandweiss and "Sleepaway Camp" star Felissa Rose are painfully wasted as garbage characters. This movie is the bane of the low-budget, straight-to-video universe. Thanks to this moronic, clueless, pitiful and pathetic excuse for a horror film, I have become extra cautious when searching for a decent horror movie on the video shelves. It used to be that I grabbed anything that looked interesting, and though most of what I got was lousy, I'd occasionally come across a gem or two. I was in the same state of mind when I rented this insipid dust speck. Thanks to this movie, I almost never rent any sort of STV horror release nowadays. Due to my over-caution, I've probably passed up real movies that deserved my attention. Dante Tomaselli, you owe me an apology you pretentious hack.

Sometimes, it takes a little searching to find what's worth bringing home. Yes there were some continuity issues with Satan's Playground. Yes, there are some questionable performances and yes you may find yourself saying "what the heck?" However, try and take enjoyment in the individual morsels of creativity. Not every film can be an Exorcist or Cannibal Holocaust.
Irma St. Paule (RIP) was creepy, pick the film apart and it remains one surety and to see this elderly woman snorting cocaine made me belly laugh. Irma St. Paule, was listed as being eighty years old at the time of her death (January 2007), although, some of her peers suspected that she was in fact older. Whether that be true or not, this still placed her as the oldest performing actor in the business (at that time), she was on stage until the end and that is something to be said. I enjoyed seeing Ellen Sandweiss again; she is a part of the institution that set the bar. This is Cheryl from Sam Raimi's Evil Dead (1981), she was one of the scariest demons I have seen to date and the only woman (or at least the first) to be raped by a tree. There is some other talent worth mentioning. Felissa Rose's performance was actually pretty good considering what she had to work with (Which included a husband (Salvatore Paul Piro) who is twice her age (and size), in addition to a terribly portrayed Autistic son (Danny Lopes) that is twenty six years old, meaning Felissa birthed him at twelve), however, when you are looking into those eyes, they convey fear. Felissa has come a long way since her role as the transgendered murderess in Sleepaway Camp (1983), which still has a cult following. I will never forget her at the end of the film, standing there, [...] (I was definitely scarred). Sleepaway Camp is a notable entry to the 80's slasher invasion.
Back to Satan's Playground, there were some steals from Sam Raimi's Evil Dead (in addition to Ellen Sandweiss) for instance, the famous POV shots of the unseen bat like assailant (Jersey Devil), which had little to do with movie. Most of the quality kills were via bludgeoning or being drugged by the House's inhabitants and not the Jersey Devil. Additionally, the facial expressions made by Christie Sandford were very similar to that of Possessed Betsy Baker's (Linda of Evil Dead). Though his role was confusing to say the least, it is worth a mention that Edwin Neal who plays "Boy" was none other than the Hitchhiker of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). Raine Brown was also on set, unfortunately with a very small role.
Overall, I'll admit, the film is a little less to be desired. However, if you truly love horror, you'll retrieve these aforementioned morsels of entertainment and move on. If anything, to see Irma snorting cocaine is worth the watch (I am laughing as I end this). Happy Horrors

Bffff. I gave it two stars, maybe it deserves 2.5 stars. But it's definately not worth OWNING - no matter how cheap. It's all about an old ghost tale - which would be worthy of a move, just not this one. The acting's bad - they tried to make the movie all about suspense and fear, but they failed! OH, and . . . WAY TOO MUCH SPITTLE!

This film has enough suspense to raise the heart rate a bit, but one is never sure of the what/where/why of the monster(s). Suspensions need resolutions, and this movie offers none. If you are out of coffee and need a bit of stimulus, watch this movie; if you are looking for a decent plot behind your dose of thrill, go to the store and buy some more coffee - coffee gone, coffee bought. Ahh ...

The creators of this film obviously have quite a few Amazon 'critics' on their payroll - LOL - this is EASILY one of the VERY WORST pieces of steaming dung I have even seen money spent on and put on film

Bad sets, HORRIBLE acting and direction that seems like it came out of a Life Cereal commercial from 1975. I do not normally write reviews here on Amazon, but I feel the GUT WRENCHING URGE to do my part to STEER AS MANY PEOPLE AWAY FROM THIS AS I CAN.

This movie is truly terrible. Not a "good 'bad' move", just [..]. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!