Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

italbi00 So I finally got to watch Satan's Playground, which was on my top ten list of films to see this year. I love the title of this film Satan's Playground...First and foremost this film is actually Dante Tomaselli take on the legend of the Jersey Devil. Now it's his fictional take on the story, so all you jersey devil freaks don't go knocking the film because he gave the story some good old fashion blood and guts. Now with that said let me just point out one thing. There is a reason why the films scare factor is so high...The fact of the matter is that you never created a child before and I just did. And Tomaselli gave me a ninety minute heart attack by putting an infant into the hands of a bunch of sadistic people, and left you wondering throughout the whole film just what they had in mind for little baby Anthony. Satan's Playground is loosely based the legend of the jersey devil...As the story moves along more and more of the family starts to leave the car for a hike through the woods, each of them seem to make their way to the same house where the Leeds family lives. The problem is the Leeds are not your normal family, factor in the unknown force in the forest. And you've got yourself a film that takes you on a roller-coaster ride of terror though the forests of south Jersey.After seeing Tomaselli's "Horror" a few years ago, I knew then that this guy had something. Horror by no means is your typical horror film, it's a very artistic, surreal horror film. Satan's Playground is your basic horror film, with a direct plot. However what I noticed is that Dante still has a good eye for odd and surreal looking shots. I actually love the vision he has, it's almost experimental in a way, yet his use of shots in Satan's Playground give you that very uncomfortable feeling, like your being watched or that any second someone or something might pop out of the woodwork and stick an ax up your ass. I mean the shots alone psychologically screw with you. On another note, one thing that most horror fans might enjoy is how similar the shots are to the likes of Evil Dead and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I found it to be a pretty neat use of shots in a whole using the point of view shots of the devil, ala running though the woods or coming down from the sky. Very, very cool. You can even go as far as saying that Satan's Playground pays a respectful homage to Evil Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, House of 1000 Corpses and Halloween... Felissa Rose the cult icon that she is was pretty good, I mean she played a real big bitch in this film. I mean this character wins my PMS award of the year. Ellen Sandweiss was decent in all her Evil Dead ways. Talk about a women who looks like she hardly aged a bit. And then their was the crazy Leeds family headed by Irma St. Paule as Mrs. Leeds who personally was one screwed up old witch, I really enjoyed her bizarre and twisted performance. And last but not least how can I forget Christie Sanford as Judy. Damn woman, you running around with that baby in your hand is the reason why I gave this film a three and half scare factor rating. I was not sure if Judy was going to keep the kid as her own or eat the kid...Overall, Tomaselli sold me on this one. He's a director with a lot of creative and artistic vision. I know some people did not get the gist of what was going on with his film "Horror". But Satan's Playground is a pretty straight forward horror film. I'll be the first to admit that I'm sure most people won't be as scared as I was by the film. But when you knock up your wife someday you'll understand why I got so psychologically mind raped by this film. The more I think about it, the more I wish my kid will just stay in my wife womb. Satan's Playground is a great mind-blowing psychological horror film, one well worth checking out.

italamerican27-1 3 1/2 stars. With SATAN'S PLAYGROUND (Anchor Bay), filmmaker Dante Tomaselli uses a traditional drive-in movie story as a way to anchor the hallucinogenic style of his previous films. This tale of a vacationing family lost in the woods, assaulted by a supernatural entity and a freaky backwoods clan, is "old fashioned," as Tomaselli says on his commentary, "but laced with LSD." Running a taut and feverish 81 minutes, this visually striking throwback to 1970s horror classics was shot in 1.85:1 widescreen (16x9-enhanced here) and the atmosphere of dread is immeasurably aided by highly evocative Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. Tomaselli draws strong performances from genre heroines Felissa Rose and Ellen Sandweiss as potential victims and Texas Chainsaw Massacre hitchhiker Ed Neal as one of the crazies, which only adds to the retro feel. Even though Tomaselli clearly loves The Evil Dead and frequently tips his hat, his portrait of a dysfunctional family under pressure feels personal and sometimes scathing. It's never artsy for its own sake, though, and can just as easily be enjoyed as a spooky funhouse ride -- a character's paranoid walk down a hallway toward a secret room is a nailbiter that builds to a brutally abrupt jolt. While his commentary and an on camera interview with Tomaselli reveal him as a passionate genre filmmaker, the behind-the-scenes featurette is unfortunately an uninspired puff piece. For a more in-depth look at the director, we'll have to wait for Christopher P.Garetano's upcoming documentary The Horror of Dante Tomaselli (trailered here) - - but until then, this DVD is a fine addition to a strong filmmaker's growing body of work.

mikidutza_the_best Well I must say this movie is a complete cinematic disaster.The characters act like some cartoons characters.Even Tom and Jerry would keep me more interested...The author of the movie inspired from a lot of other movies...like "The Texas chainsaw massacre" ,"Running scared".It's ingenuity isn't shown at all.I started watching this movie with great interest,fooled by the captivating title.This movie is lame,not horror at all...And when the creature cuts a boy,from his throat runs so much blood like it was a comedy or something.It's not making any sense regarding to the title.Maybe I am used to real horror movies and criticize too much but I think this movie wouldn't scare anyone who has seen at least one real horror movie.If I may compare this to "The Texas chainsaw massacre" I can say this is just a lame copy of the script put on screen with some second category characters.It's not worth seeing.Better try the original!

smittie-1 What a mess. And I had good feelings, too, after the first five minutes. After a competent, simple POV attack scene I waited with baited breath, anxiously pondering what horrific form the Jersey Devil would take, what terrible possibilities a film like this could play with . . . and the monster totally dropped out of the movie. The next twenty minutes consisted of three people in a car being "dramatic". Still, I thought, ol' Jersey D can't be far away, eh? No. I'm not even gonna lead you on anymore. After the "character" scenes the movie lurches into a load of bushwah about a psychotic backwoods family and a satanic cult, but you shouldn't bother taking notes, because none of it goes anywhere. At all. It's a completely empty movie, no motivation, no story, not even any scares. You could rearrange all of the scenes and it wouldn't make a damn bit of difference. And the Jersey Devil stays a POV shot the whole film. But hey, that's "nightmare logic" for you, right? Right?No, it's crap, and Dante Tomaselli should be called out on it. A bad movie's still bad, even if you can wax philosophic about it on your commentary track, and a movie with no plot can't get away with "nightmare logic" (director's words) if there's nothing else for it to fall back on.