Review: Class Action Park

It’s hilarious…until someone dies. This disarmingly entertaining 2020 documentary from co-directors Chris Charles Scott III and Seth Porges tells the incredible true story of New Jersey’s Action Park, an amusement park that sounds like it was created by the “Jackass” guys by way of Itchy and Scratchy Land from “The Simpsons”. A waterpark so recklessly designed, carelessly managed and overall dangerous that idiot Americans would line up just so they could say they survived it. Then a few didn’t survive. Yeah. The Dreamworld disaster ain’t got nothin’ on Action Park.

 

With all the injuries and yes, eventually deaths occurring at the park, you almost feel bad for laughing and having a good time for the majority of this film’s length. We even get a clip of Johnny Knoxville on Jimmy Kimmel’s show talking about the park. How perfect, how inevitable. The kicker is that Kimmel claims his entire family was injured there at some point. Jesus Christ. It’s truly jaw-dropping how little care, concern, and competent planning went on at this park at any stage in its conception, development, or its active run (which in its first iteration was between 1978 and 1996!). Zero is the number, it seems. Park creator Gene Mulvihill was a greedy, reckless, dollar store Walt Disney piece of garbage.

 

Horrible as parts of this story are, you can’t help laughing at the early stages of the doco. Some of the funniest moments are the overly earnest, poorly acted ads for the park. Cheesy 80s American goodness. Also funny is a clip of an interview at the park for MTV’s “Headbanger’s Ball” featuring Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell from Alice in Chains talking about a ride that supposedly made part of your body a little uncomfortable afterwards. At one point someone says ‘Action Park was run by kids!’, which really says it all. 14-17 year-olds were working at this joint with zero experience and little common sense. As funny as this is – and it’s hilariously stupid – it’s also completely terrifying to imagine these rides on a busy day. If the rides themselves didn’t harm you, being crushed by other people surely would. And if drinking was also involved? Oh, boy. Speaking of alcohol, Mulvihill came up with the genius idea of locating the motor car section right next to where they served beer. Insanity. How the hell did this happen let alone how did this damn park stay active for so long? If people keep showing up and buying in, I guess there’s no reason for Mulvihill to close the park. By the way, Australian viewers may find themselves particularly unnerved by Action Park’s big catch phrase ‘Where you control the action!’. I’ve never been to Jamberoo Recreation Park in NSW (which uses the same catch phrase), but I sure as shit hope it’s run a lot safer than Action Park! Towards the end we receive a real punch to the guts with the tragic story of the Larsson family, a heartbreaking and infuriating tale that really takes this documentary from a fun lark into sobering, fatal reality. People didn’t always walk away from Action Park with a few minor scrapes and bumps. People were actually killed on these rides. There’s nothing funny or light-hearted about that and thankfully the filmmakers don’t try to turn those stories into something amusing. It might make the film seem tonally confused, but the story of Action Park is a messy and confusing one in and of itself. People had fun, people got hurt, people died, Jerry Mulvihill made money, and you get the feeling some of the people interviewed sorta kinda miss the ‘good old days’ of Action Park. It's nostalgic, funny, horrifying, and tragic all in the same film without making anything feel cheapened or incongruent. This is just how the story goes, with comedian Chris Gethard in particular getting the balancing act right of laughing at the craziness of it all, but also making sure to note that this shit was wrong and should never have been allowed to happen in the first place.

 

Alternately funny, horrifying, sad, shameful, and stupid, here’s an engrossing doco about a real-life “Itchy and Scratchy Land”. Must-see, it’ll blow your mind that this was allowed to happen let alone for so damn long.

 

Rating: B