The Amusement Park

The Amusement Park is a 1975 American horror film directed and edited by George A. Romero from a screenplay by Wally Cook. It stars Lincoln Maazel, Harry Albacker, Phyllis Casterwiler, Pete Chovan and Sally Erwin. Filmed in 1973, it was commissioned by the Lutheran Service Society of Western Pennsylvania as an educational film about elder abuse. The Amusement Park is one of Romero's only films to be devoid of supernatural elements. The film premiered two years after its production at the 1975 American Film Festival in New York. However, it failed to find a distributor; for 44 years after its initial showing, it was considered to be a lost film, with many, including Romero's later wife Suzanne Desrocher-Romero, being unaware of its existence. In 2017, a 16 mm print of The Amusement Park was found and sent to Romero shortly before his death. The film underwent a 4K restoration supervised by Desrocher-Romero, which premiered in Pittsburgh on October 12, 2019, before receiving its first wide release on June 8, 2021, when Shudder released it for home media in most English-speaking countries. It received very positive reviews, with critics, who deemed it atypical of Romero's work, praising its direction and social commentary.