After a crowdfunding restoration campaign by the George A. Romero Foundation, The Amusement Park will finally be shown next month.
Last year, the late George Romero‘s wife, Suzanne Desrocher-Romero, had teased that a largely unseen film Romero shot in 1973 was going to be restored and released. The 60-minute film is titled The Amusement Park, and it’s actually a (heavily theatrical) PSA on age discrimination that Romero was hired to make early in his career. It was filmed for TV, but never actually released.
The foundation posted to their official Twitter account yesterday afternoon, “The George A. Romero Foundation is thrilled to announce that George’s “lost” film, The Amusement Park, will be making its official premiere on Saturday, Oct 12 at Pittsburgh’s Regent Square Theater. Thank you to EVERYONE who contributed and made this screening possible.”
Written by Wally Cook, the official synopsis is as follows: “An elderly gentlemen sets out for what he thinks will be a normal day at an amusement park and is soon embroiled in a waking nightmare the likes of which you’ve never seen.”
Considering that, of the few pictures of The Amusement Park that are easily found, a couple are much more intense than the rest, that’s an understandable description. This will likely be a social horror film in the same vein as Get Out, and I don’t like the elderly protagonist’s chances when a grim reaper cosplayer steps onto the scene. A wider release is probably in the cards after the October 12th showing, so if you’re interested in Romero’s work, you’ve got something to look forward to, even after all these years.