VIDEO NASTIES – Don’t Go Near the Park

Published on: 29th August, 2009

VIDEO NASTIES - Don't Go Near the Park  | read this item

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As the violence in movies became more and more graphic, the films’ titles would be represented as warnings for the viewer. Thus, within a twelve-month period, audiences were subjected to the likes of Don’t Go in the House, Don’t Answer the Phone! and Don’t Go in the Woods. Cult filmmaker had even felt the need to warn us twice with both Don’t Look in the Basement (originally titled The Forgotten) and Don’t Open the Door. Another movie to offer a similar moniker was Don’t Go Near the Park, an extremely low budget splatter flick that would mark the introduction of future scream queen Linnea Quigley. As with many gory offerings of the era, the film soon found its way onto the UK’s ‘video nasty’ list, although its appearance would be very brief. Despite this, it would remain unavailable in Britain for the next two decades.

Don’t Go Near the Park would mark the first foray into horror for a nineteen year old filmmaker called Lawrence D. Foldes. Having taken a proficiency exam in an effort to leave high school early, Foldes had enrolled at the University of Southern California but found it a frustrating experience. Instead, he decided to relocate to CalArts, an animation school founded by Walt Disney in the 1960’s, where he would learn about the art of filmmaking from the likes of Alexander Mackendrick, who had directed the classic Whisky Galore! and worked alongside such screen legends as Alec Guinness (The Man in the White Suit, The Ladykillers), Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis (Sweet Smell of Success) and Anthony Quinn (A High Wind in Jamaica). After CalArts, he graduated from Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara at eighteen and was soon faced with the decision of what he wanted to do with his life.

Realizing that to apply for a role at a studio would result in him working as a gopher, Foldes instead contacting various distributors, asking for advice on what type of film would guarantee to make a profit. The common response were beach movies, which had become popular during the 1960’s with such cheap offerings as Blue Hawaii, Beach Party, Bikini Beach and Girls on the Beach. Along with writers John Buckley and Tom Singer, and director Irvin Berwick, Foldes decided to produce a similar film and the result was Malibu High, which told of a young student who tries to seduce her teachers in an effort to increase her grades. Shot for a mere $56,000, the film was picked up for distribution by Crown International Pictures, allegedly making around $10m at the box office.

Eager to make another feature and now taken seriously after his previous success, Foldes once again asked distributors what type of film could be sold easily. This time, their response was horror. The late 1970’s had seen a rise of independent filmmakers shooting cheap horrors that would become relatively successful around drive-ins and late night theatres. Meir Zarchi had made I Spit on Your Grave, John Carpenter had done Halloween and Don Coscarelli had enjoyed minor acclaim with Phantasm, so Foldes decided that he would attempt something similar. And with the recent advancement in prosthetics, coupled with the new interest young artists had taken in special effects (Stan Winston, Rob Bottin, Rick Baker and Tom Savini were becoming celebrities in their own right), filmmakers could produce a horror film with very little money.

Inspiration would become from Linwood Chase, a friend who had told him about a series of unexplained disappearances that had taken place in and around Griffith Park near the Santa Monica Mountains in Los Angeles. As a result, Chase had penned a story entitled Sanctuary for Evil, in which a tribe of cannibals that lived in a cave deep in the park would prey on young children, draining their blood in an effort to achieve eternal youth. Foldes found the premise intriguing but had reservations about how well it could be translated to the screen (cannibals feasting on tourists had previously been explored in Wes Craven’s 1977 classic The Hills Have Eyes) and suggested that the concept be re-written in order to make it more suitable to their style and what resources would be available to them.

Working alongside Chase, Foldes eventually managed to deliver a draft that he felt would make a successful movie. His father, George, was an accountant and had managed to convince several of his clients to invest in his son’s project, despite none of them being aware of what type of film he was intending to make. Foldes finally managed to raise a budget of around $110-115,000 and immediately commenced work on pre-production. Recruiting his Malibu High cinematographer and editor, William DeDiego and Dan Perry, Foldes began searching for special effects artist that could help bring his vision to the screen. Taking various elements from Chase’s original story, the script would tell of Gar and Tar, two cannibals from a tribe who, 12,000 years ago, were banished from their society and cursed to spend eternity ageing rapidly but never dying. The only way for them to break their spell would be at a specific time in the future when they would have to sacrifice their own offspring. Until then, they would be forced to feed on the flesh of their victims to remain young.

To create the artificial stomachs in which the antagonists would disembowel and devour from, Foldes brought in an up-and-coming artist called Douglas J. White, whose previous work hand included several low key fantasy movies but would later work on Friday the 13th Part III, The Return of the Living Dead, Return to Horror High and Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh. For several of the gore effects (including the bear trap sequence), the filmmakers hired Robert Burns, a talented makeup designer who had previously worked on Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and would later work on The Howling and Re-Animator. The various gut-munching scenes were achieved by using real animals intestines and lives, which were placed inside the prosthetic stomachs. Despite it appearing that the actors were in fact eating them, only the fake blood was placed on their face and no actual intestines were consumed.

The casting of the movie would prove to be a curious affair, particularly due to the fact that it was a non-union production and so those who were members of the Screen Actors Guild were forced to be credited under pseudonyms. The true identity of Crackers Phinn, who portrayed Gar (also referred to as Mark), remains a mystery, as even the filmmakers are unable to recall who he really was. Tra, however would be played by Barbara Monker, an alias of Barbara Bain, whose extensive and impressive résumé included Mission: Impossible and Space: 1999. The top billing would go to Aldo Ray (despite his character being one of the least relevant of the story), who had appeared in such classics as We’re No Angels, Sylvia and Riot on Sunset Strip. He had been the subject of controversy, however, after appearing in an X-rated movie entitled Sweet Savage, co-starring alongside Deep Throat’s Carol Connors (whose daughter, Thora Birch, would later win acclaim for her role in American Beauty).

The character of Bondi, who would become the offspring that both Gar and Tra would be forced to sacrifice, would be played by several different actresses throughout her life. The majority of the film would show her as a sixteen year old, and for the role Foldes decided to cast Tamara Taylor, whom he had previously collaborated with on Malibu High. Taylor was first discovered by the director whilst she was studying acting at the University of California in Santa Barbara, and he had been impressed with her enough after shooting Malibu High that he decided to give her a more substantial role. Incidentally, Taylor would also portray the queen of the tribe who would banish Gar and Tra from their village. In one of the film’s most notorious scenes, in which a group of strangers attempt to rape Bondi in the back of the van, her two attackers were portrayed by none other than Foldes and Chase. The film would also mark the breakthrough role of Linnea Quigley, who would enjoy a successful horror career during the 1980’s with such cult movies as Graduation Day, Silent Night, Deadly Night, The Return of the Living Dead and Night of the Demons.

Don’t Go Near the Park had its world premiere at the Embassy Theatre on S. Western Avenue in Los Angeles. Due to it being her first substantial role (and her first full frontal nudity), Quigley became extremely nervous before the screening and eventually made herself sick from panic. Although its earlier screenings had been under its original title, Sanctuary for Evil, the film would receive a wider run as Don’t Go Near the Park. It would become notorious in the UK when it would be included alongside another sixty-one movies on the DPP’s list of ‘video nasties’ in August 1984, causing various retailers to be convicted of selling obscene material. Although the movie would not see an office release until as late as 2006, Don’t Go Near the Park would still make an appearance on the Horror Channel, albeit in a censored form.

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