While not ever reaching the feverish pitch of SNAKES ON A PLANE's massive internet push which left people gASPing for its release, Dante Tomaselli's SATANS PLAYGROUND has slowly grown a major cult following a full year before its August 22nd release. While New Line's movies slithers into B movie hissstory as a disappointment, Tomaselli's PLAYGROUND has teeter tottered into the consciousness of horror fans everywhere...and comes out swinging.
Director Tomaselli has had great success with 2 previous dtdvd releases-DESECRATION and HORROR. Those two films were sensational dreams-capes of masterful terror. SATANS PLAYGROUND straddles the anxieties and fears derived from those films while adding a new landscape of monotony, claustrophobia and pulverizing action to create a roller-coaster ride you won't soon forget. If DESECRATION was the ascent of a wooden coaster-rickety, unnerving and surprising-and HORROR the tip of the first hill-no turning back fright, than SATANS PLAYGROUND is the out of control coaster descending uncontrollably into an abyss of the unknown, noisy, out of control and harrowing.
Tomaselli tantalizes viewers like few modern directors have. SATANS PLAYGROUND has a definitive signature scrawled across its celluloid in blood. He is a unique austerest who unlike the cookie cutter directors today creates his films from the inner turmoils of the dark recesses of his mind-not from a concept. Yet PLAYGROUND-on the surface-is a concept. It is "the Jersey Devil movie".But-like the motifs running through all his films-nothing is as it seems. The legend of the Devil is there-but the psychology and complexity of this film is as thick as the fauna and flora of its forest setting. Like the Pine Barrens itself, PLAYGROUND won't let you out so easy once you are taken into it and once inside its eerie trappings-you are overwhelmed by its beauty but deceived by it as well.
SATANS PLAYGROUND is unrelenting and its director unforgiving. It is a popcorn movie and a therapy session rolled into one. Tomaselli creates a series of characters everyone can identify with-a young wife with an autistic teen son-unhappily married to a man 15 years her senior. Her beloved single mom sister-her only friend and her infant baby. Travelling on a vacation in a vintage station wagon, Tomaselli cleverly sets up the situation. The overbearing husband/father to the left-and in front, an old fashioned man who's literally in the drivers seat. The unhappy wife on the right, helpless . The sister right behind her sister in placement and support , the baby in the coveted seat in the center and like all teens-the autistic boy in the rear-unheard and barely seen.
Tomaselli puts the movie into high gear immediately after an incredible opening aerial shot that dwarfs the Bruno family in the massive woods-there is dread at the get go. I wont spoil the thrills ahead but the sadistic side of Tomaselli takes no prisoners. Nothing is predictable-some of it disturbs all of it frightens.
Felissa Rose epitomizes the 30 something mother who is literally and emotionally lost in the woods as her life meanders on. She is an elegant actress-she says more in her facial contortions than someone would in a one woman show. Tomaselli has given her a vast canvas of which she paints a colorful, shaded portrait of despair.. You care greatly what happens to her character-and it isn't pretty. Ellen Sandweiss as the sister looks uncannily like Rose. You believe they are sisters. Her single mom-like many we know-has resorted to the loneliness consuming her life. Her baby is all that matters and Sandweiss' inert fierceness and maternal instinct propels her to a point of no return-she's fearless-any mother would be. Ellen Sandweiss is a stunner, she exudes sensuousness without bearly trying. In these thickets she is a true earth mother. Together Sandweiss and Rose are 2/3rds of Bergman's CRIES AND WHISPERS sisters who care for their sickly teen son/nephew who is dying inside rather than a third sister dying outside. Tomaselli shoots them lovingly-their beauty transcends the gorgeousness of this films delicate palette. As the teen, Tomaselli has resorted-very successfully-to using Danny Lopes as his alter ego as Truffaut had done in his films. Lopes gives a powerful, heartbreaking performance as the mishandled Sean. Tomaselli has used him as the catalyst in all his movies-he is literally The Eyes of Dante Tomaselli. Through him we glance at the true horror of these movies-Dante Tomaselli's visionaries of his past.Irma St. Paule is one of the most maniacal creations on film. A magnificently shattering performance-she is Medusa in Martha Stewarts clothing. She'll bring shivers to your dreams. The antithesis of Sandweiss' Paula-she too will stop at nothing to save her children-only two of 13 being left. Tomaselli's parallels of good mother/evil mother are 2 sides of the same coin and it fascinates as well as repels. As the repulsive progeny, Christie Sanford exudes pathologicalness-and manages unbelievably to create sympathy for her deranged kidnapper. But-its not long before you lose sympathy for this devil-woman. Ed Neal is Quasimodo and the Elephant Man-a misunderstood monster that is allowed to run rampant and has no choice of benevolence-as much as he tries-because he's not shackled in a bell tower or whisked away in a freak show. Neal leaves an indelible impression nearly equaling the 74 CHAINSAW he costarred in.
SATANS PLAYGROUND demands attention. It is an important step in modern horror. Its references to other films-part of the fun is finding them in this demented Where's Waldo? scheme-are only a launching pad to a unique visionary. With DESECRATION.HORROR and SATANS PLAYGROUND, Tomaselli has resurrected the thematic films prevalent in foreign films by Rohmer and Truffaut in the 70s. This is a hot movie-a Dante's inferno if you will-and with PLAYGROUND it is also Dante's Peak...for now.
Director Tomaselli has had great success with 2 previous dtdvd releases-DESECRATION and HORROR. Those two films were sensational dreams-capes of masterful terror. SATANS PLAYGROUND straddles the anxieties and fears derived from those films while adding a new landscape of monotony, claustrophobia and pulverizing action to create a roller-coaster ride you won't soon forget. If DESECRATION was the ascent of a wooden coaster-rickety, unnerving and surprising-and HORROR the tip of the first hill-no turning back fright, than SATANS PLAYGROUND is the out of control coaster descending uncontrollably into an abyss of the unknown, noisy, out of control and harrowing.
Tomaselli tantalizes viewers like few modern directors have. SATANS PLAYGROUND has a definitive signature scrawled across its celluloid in blood. He is a unique austerest who unlike the cookie cutter directors today creates his films from the inner turmoils of the dark recesses of his mind-not from a concept. Yet PLAYGROUND-on the surface-is a concept. It is "the Jersey Devil movie".But-like the motifs running through all his films-nothing is as it seems. The legend of the Devil is there-but the psychology and complexity of this film is as thick as the fauna and flora of its forest setting. Like the Pine Barrens itself, PLAYGROUND won't let you out so easy once you are taken into it and once inside its eerie trappings-you are overwhelmed by its beauty but deceived by it as well.
SATANS PLAYGROUND is unrelenting and its director unforgiving. It is a popcorn movie and a therapy session rolled into one. Tomaselli creates a series of characters everyone can identify with-a young wife with an autistic teen son-unhappily married to a man 15 years her senior. Her beloved single mom sister-her only friend and her infant baby. Travelling on a vacation in a vintage station wagon, Tomaselli cleverly sets up the situation. The overbearing husband/father to the left-and in front, an old fashioned man who's literally in the drivers seat. The unhappy wife on the right, helpless . The sister right behind her sister in placement and support , the baby in the coveted seat in the center and like all teens-the autistic boy in the rear-unheard and barely seen.
Tomaselli puts the movie into high gear immediately after an incredible opening aerial shot that dwarfs the Bruno family in the massive woods-there is dread at the get go. I wont spoil the thrills ahead but the sadistic side of Tomaselli takes no prisoners. Nothing is predictable-some of it disturbs all of it frightens.
Felissa Rose epitomizes the 30 something mother who is literally and emotionally lost in the woods as her life meanders on. She is an elegant actress-she says more in her facial contortions than someone would in a one woman show. Tomaselli has given her a vast canvas of which she paints a colorful, shaded portrait of despair.. You care greatly what happens to her character-and it isn't pretty. Ellen Sandweiss as the sister looks uncannily like Rose. You believe they are sisters. Her single mom-like many we know-has resorted to the loneliness consuming her life. Her baby is all that matters and Sandweiss' inert fierceness and maternal instinct propels her to a point of no return-she's fearless-any mother would be. Ellen Sandweiss is a stunner, she exudes sensuousness without bearly trying. In these thickets she is a true earth mother. Together Sandweiss and Rose are 2/3rds of Bergman's CRIES AND WHISPERS sisters who care for their sickly teen son/nephew who is dying inside rather than a third sister dying outside. Tomaselli shoots them lovingly-their beauty transcends the gorgeousness of this films delicate palette. As the teen, Tomaselli has resorted-very successfully-to using Danny Lopes as his alter ego as Truffaut had done in his films. Lopes gives a powerful, heartbreaking performance as the mishandled Sean. Tomaselli has used him as the catalyst in all his movies-he is literally The Eyes of Dante Tomaselli. Through him we glance at the true horror of these movies-Dante Tomaselli's visionaries of his past.Irma St. Paule is one of the most maniacal creations on film. A magnificently shattering performance-she is Medusa in Martha Stewarts clothing. She'll bring shivers to your dreams. The antithesis of Sandweiss' Paula-she too will stop at nothing to save her children-only two of 13 being left. Tomaselli's parallels of good mother/evil mother are 2 sides of the same coin and it fascinates as well as repels. As the repulsive progeny, Christie Sanford exudes pathologicalness-and manages unbelievably to create sympathy for her deranged kidnapper. But-its not long before you lose sympathy for this devil-woman. Ed Neal is Quasimodo and the Elephant Man-a misunderstood monster that is allowed to run rampant and has no choice of benevolence-as much as he tries-because he's not shackled in a bell tower or whisked away in a freak show. Neal leaves an indelible impression nearly equaling the 74 CHAINSAW he costarred in.
SATANS PLAYGROUND demands attention. It is an important step in modern horror. Its references to other films-part of the fun is finding them in this demented Where's Waldo? scheme-are only a launching pad to a unique visionary. With DESECRATION.HORROR and SATANS PLAYGROUND, Tomaselli has resurrected the thematic films prevalent in foreign films by Rohmer and Truffaut in the 70s. This is a hot movie-a Dante's inferno if you will-and with PLAYGROUND it is also Dante's Peak...for now.