Before get great satisfaction with the youth, Bob Clark likes to put them on a desert island. And there would be nothing wrong if the island in question was not a cemetery, and if the Clark’s reference was not George Romero.
Two things that let easily imagine what happens in this movie and the "Porky's" director has no problem to show clearly that he want to follow the trail of the master of modern zombies.
"Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things" is a B movie written in ten days (and maybe shot too) became a cult which was to have a remake done by the same Clark (but he dies in an accident before the beginning) and another announced in 2010.
We are in 1972 and it must be said that this film is very boring also for the time. But it is a movie to which must be recognized the ability to convey a sense of discomfort (i.e., the horror) good craft quality of zombies and satire against the theater.
Good title aside, there is nothing relevant for most of the story. These "children" fight, collide, they are in love, leaving the explosion of events in the last thirty minutes.
Of course the protagonists are not children, but they are actors, so called by the director of a stage show that takes them on a desert island. The goal is to awake the dead, because the show that they are preparing is focused on that. The Stanislavsky method but it gets out of hand.
Alan is the leader of the group and doesn’t seem to have any respect for the place or for the dead. So bold to exhume a corpse and take it for a walk as if it were a close friend. Someone warned him, but he continues and then zombies get angry beginning a massacre in Romero perfect style.
The rotting zombies fulfill their duty and dark setting does the rest, creating a scenario, as said, scary. Clark doesn’t have strokes of genius and the acting of the actors is worthy of the B movie.
From a cult we expected much more, but despite all this movie worth watching.