Shudder Nabs George A. Romero’s Unseen ‘The Amusement Park’ (Exclusive)

Shudder has snapped up The Amusement Park, a newly-restored “lost” film by zombie movie pioneer George A. Romero.

AMC Networks’ horror, thriller and supernatural streaming service picked up The Amusement Park for North America, the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. The formerly lost film from Romero, being sold worldwide by Yellow Veil Pictures, will stream on Shudder for the first time this summer.

“The moment we heard The Amusement Park had been rediscovered and was being restored, we knew we had to bring this unseen George A. Romero masterpiece to Shudder members,” Craig Engler, Shudder’s general manager, said in a statement.

Commissioned from Romero by the Lutheran Society, The Amusement Park stars Lincoln Maazel as an elderly man who finds himself disoriented and increasingly isolated as the pains, tragedies, and humiliations of aging in America are illustrated by his journey among roller coasters and chaotic crowds.

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The film is seen as an allegory about the nightmarish realities of growing older and as a snapshot of the filmmaker’s early artistic capacity and style. The George A. Romero Foundation initially discovered the film and restored it in 4K around 46 years after its completion under the direction of producer Suzanne Desrocher-Romero.

Romero, considered the father of the zombie movie, with horror pics like Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead thrilled audiences for decades. The distribution deal was negotiated ahead of this year’s virtual European Film Market in Berlin by Emily Gotto and Samuel Zimmerman on behalf of Shudder, and Hugues Barbier, Justin Timms and Joe Yanick of Yellow Veil Pictures on behalf of the filmmakers.

Shudder also released the film’s poster, created by Polish artist Aleksander Walijewski.

“We at the G.A.R.F are thrilled that after this long journey, this Lutheran’s society’s industrial with its poignant message will finally get its light! The first and only work-for-hire in Romero’s career sheds a new perspective on an ongoing issue of ageism and Romero’s uncanny sense of reflection on society, and the Romero ‘footprint’ is ever present and bodes well for the future of his impact on American cinema,” Desrocher-Romero, founder and president of the George A. Romero Foundation, said in her own statement.