Director Dante Tomaselli hikes into the Jersey woods and finds horror within. He continues his tradition of casting genre vets. Sleepaway Camp, Evil Dead, Friday the 13th, and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre are represented.
The Bruno family is en route to a camping trip. The station wagon contains Frank Bruno (Salvatore Paul Piro), his wife Donna (Felissa Rose of Sleepaway Camp fame), their autistic son Sean (Paul Lopes), and Donna’s sister Paula (Ellen Sandweiss of Evil Dead fame) and her infant son.
The family is driving through the Jersey Pine Barrens, a wooded area where the legendary Jersey Devil is said to roam. As it happens in all of these movies, the family station wagon gets stuck in the woods.
Frank takes off to find help and ends up at the door of the creepy Mrs. Leeds (Irma St. Paule) and her even creepier daughter Judy (Christie Sanford). They make short work of Frank, but soon Donna is wandering the woods to try and find Frank and ends up in the Leeds house. She ends up tied up in the basement. Officer Peters (Ron Millkie who played a police officer in Friday the 13th) stops by the Leeds house and is attacked by the Jersey Devil.
The whole time, Sean has been having premonitions and leaves his Aunt Donna alone in the station wagon with her baby and sets out to find his mother. The baby is stolen by Judy and Paula is lured back to the Leeds house. Donna is assaulted in the basement by Mrs. Leeds’ retarded son (Edwin Neal of Texas Chainsaw Massacre) but is let go when she promises him some drugs. Soon she’s running through the woods and the Jersey Devil is in hot pursuit.
Satan’s Playground was a movie that I enjoyed, but there was some forgiveness involved. The acting wasn’t too bad, but some of the sets looked cheap. The situation is nothing new either, this is the plot of many “lost in the woods” type horror movies. What I did like was the dreamlike quality of the film, though nightmare-like might be more appropriate. The film reminded me of doses of Evil Dead (the Jersey Devil cam and shots of the woods) combined with some 1970s Euro-horror.
House full of lunatics
You know the ones where the folks go to the haunted castle and are slaughtered by the inhabitants of said castle who are really ghosts. It reminded me, to an extent, of Mario Bava’s Lisa and the Devil. Though if you listen to the commentary you find that Tomaselli has not watched a lot of 1970s Euro-horror (or claims not to have). He does mention that he drew inspiration from the Pupi Avati’s House with the Laughing Windows (1976).
Whatever the case, I felt that the film definitely had a Euro-horror vibe to it. This also marks Sandwiess’ return to horror movies since she has not appeared in any film since 1982’s Evil Dead.
Satan’s Playground is presented in anamorphic widescreen (1.85:1) and enhanced for 16x9 televisions. Special features include the 7 minute “Satan’s Playground: Behind the Scenes” which you guessed it, shows behind the scenes footage.
Next is the 4 minute “Dante Tomaselli and the Jersey Devil” which is a interview with the writer/director. There’s also a poster and still gallery. Finally there is an audio commentary with Dante Tomaselli.
The Jersey Devil strikes
I enjoyed Satan’s Playground and it’s the first film I’ve watched of Tomasellis. I’ll have to seek the others out and see if I enjoy them as well. The feature is a low budget affair so you’ll need to forgive the cheap sets, but I thought the acting was acceptable (which is usually where low budget films let you down). Perhaps it was because I was expecting worse and was pleasantly surprised that I enjoyed the film.
Satan’s Playground is now available at Amazon . As of yet, there is not a release date for the UK. Visit the DVD database for more information.
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