
SATAN'S PLAYGROUND is a supernatural shocker chronicling a family's spine-tingling odyssey in New Jersey's legendary Pine Barrens region. En route to a wilderness camping retreat, their car inexplicably breaks down. As darkness falls, panic sets in. Then the marooned family stumbles upon an ancient and seemingly abandoned house. And it is here that they meet the bizarre Mrs. Leeds who lives there with her equally unhinged children. Offering no assistance, she warns of a viole... (Full plot summary below)
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SATAN'S PLAYGROUND is a supernatural shocker chronicling a family's spine-tingling odyssey in New Jersey's legendary Pine Barrens region. En route to a wilderness camping retreat, their car inexplicably breaks down. As darkness falls, panic sets in. Then the marooned family stumbles upon an ancient and seemingly abandoned house. And it is here that they meet the bizarre Mrs. Leeds who lives there with her equally unhinged children. Offering no assistance, she warns of a violent, unseen force lurking in the forbidding countryside. Soon, the family will encounter a supernatural evil older than the woods themselves. SATAN'S PLAYGROUND...a place where deadly myth becomes gruesome reality.
Leave your thoughts about Satan's Playground.
| DVD ReviewFelix Gonzalez Jr.... a dream world in which we are constantly pulled back just as we think we are at the brink of reaching reality. |
| Dread CentralJohnny ButaneAt the end of the day, Satan's Playground let me down, a fact that I attribute primarily to the bad acting, nonsensical storyline, and lack of an appearance by the monster. |
| 7M PicturesKevin CarrIt's aim is off, and its intentions are skewed. It's the result of a horror fan taking himself - and his film - way too seriously. |
| User ReviewJason DSatan's Playground is that kind of special film where a loving and innocent family venture out into the woods where there car breaks down and they are forced to take refuge at a house where crazy forest folk live. As expected, people in the family start dying one by one. What makes this one unique is the touch of the supernatural to the story, particularly involving the infamous Jersey Devil, which exists in this film, and flies around high in the sky above the forest, occasionally killing some folks. How it was related to the demented family (one of which is the incredible Edwin Neal of TCM fame), I'm not sure, but this film offered enough spice to keep me interested thanks in part to the creepiness and eeriness of the films plotlines, the moderately decent low-budget direction of Dante Tomaselli (Desecration, Horror) and good jobs from actors Neal and the two loves of my life Ellen Sandweiss (Evil Dead) and Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp). Not a bad movie at all. |
| User ReviewRobert BSatan's Playground (Dante Tomaselli, 2006) I have long been a defender of Dante Tomaselli's work, having seen, and liked, both 1999's Desecration and 2002's Horror. I grant you, Tomaselli's movies are an acquired taste, even if you're used to no-budget horror with amateurish special effects and bad acting, but let's face it: watching a Dante Tomaselli movie on a loop for an entire week is better than watching one minute of pretty much any movie that has ever been produced by The Asylum. You know this is true. And so we come to Tomaselli's third feature, Satan's Playground. It's got some of the Tomaselli hallmarks (most notably, the fact that very little of this makes sense, as if Tomaselli woke up from a nightmare, transcribed it, and then never revised), but this movie had a bigger budget, got some name stars, and has a more straightforward plot than usual. It may have been an attempt to take the Tomaselli name to a wider audience. If so, I think it failed pretty miserably, but if you're an established Tomaselli fan, this is good stuff. We start off with a family driving through the New Jersey woods. Pieces of a family, anyway. There's grandpa (Sleepers' Salvatore Paul Piro), his two daughters Donna (Sleepaway Camp's Felissa Rose) and Paula (The Evil Dead's Ellen Sandweiss), and Paula's infant son Anthony (Marco Rose). I'm not entirely sure where they're going; if it's mentioned, I don't remember. In any case, they break down in the woods, there's a house nearby, you know the drill. That scenario never ends well. In this case, the house is inhabited by a psychotic palm reader with a taste for human flesh and her crazy kids, who take the family in one by one as they go looking for help. Despite having some actors anyone in the horror community is going to be familiar with (Raine Brown also turns up in a small role), if you ever wondered why Felissa Rose hasn't done much acting outside the Sleepaway Camp movies or Ellen Sandweiss didn't make a movie between 1982 and 2006, watching this will tell you. Still, bad acting is to be expected from a Tomaselli joint, as are the inevitable plot holes and bits that simply don't make sense. And if you take this with the nightmare angle I described earlier, you may be able to get your head around it. There are precious few of us who can, but you may be one. *** |
| User ReviewJoe ADante Tomaselli's films follow a more dream like structure then a traditional narrative. They are driven more with visuals and atmosphere and while there is a story, he tends to tell it in the same fashion that our dreams occur, sometimes vearing from one spooky scene to another and not always stopping to explain things or dot the "I"s. If you don't mind this more avant garde low budget style then you might enjoy this surreal and creepy tale of a family's unfortunate experiences when they break down in New Jersey's legendary Pine Barrens and come across the very strange "Leeds" family. Could they be the same Leeds of legend? Tomaselli takes them and us through a journey filled with madness, murder, cult rituals and very possibly a meeting with the infamous Jersey Devil itself. A strange and bloody little movie that has both a fairy tale and nightmare quality to it. I like Tomaselli's flicks but admit they are both an acquired taste and a guilty pleasure. Stars genre vets Felissa Rose (Sleepaway Camp) and Ellen Sandweiss (Evil Dead). |
| User ReviewJeff QOn the surface, Satan's Playground looks like a poorly acted and mostly poorly written horror that at the same time takes itself too seriously and doesn't make any sense. I found a hidden subplot in the film (that may or may not have been intentional), that really made this film an intersting watch. I dont like to give spoilers in my reviews so I won't go into these details, but I will say that this sub plot really did make the film enjoyable and took a film that appears random to eventually all fall in line. Whether it is desrving or not, I am giving Satan's Playground a positive review. If you want any other details, add a comment and we can discuss. |
| User ReviewPrivate USATAN'S PLAYGROUND is a thrilling and unsettling movie with sadistic antagonists and a disturbing setting. 'Playground' is not like a movie you've seen before, and you should definetly check it out. |
| User ReviewDan GI was very disappointed. This looked to be a downright bloody, hack and slash horror fest full of gore and violence. It turned out to be a cheese fest with lousy acting, a lame story, and a lot of fake looking death. A big letdown. |
| User ReviewJohn WTomaselli's goals may have been admirable for this film, but whatever the intent, it fell FAR short in execution. I can only surmise that Satan's Playground is a demonic tool that causes viewers to take their own lives rather then be subjected to any more... |