Class Action Park (2020)
(On Cable TV, September 2020) One of the most interesting kinds of laughter is what I call the disbelief laughter—whatever comes out when you’re just astounded, in denial, or still trying to process new information that just simply shouldn’t be part of reality. Since that information can be violent or macabre in nature, it’s the kind of laughter that makes you feel a little bit like a psychopath. All of this to say that you may find yourself laughing quite a bit throughout the documentary feature Class Action Park, and at things that are resolutely not funny. Don’t worry—that laughter is your brain trying to catch up. The film is all about New Jersey’s infamous Action Park, an amusement park so dangerous and badly supervised that no less than six deaths have been linked to the park rides—and that’s not mentioning the countless injuries (“several ambulances per day”), the high-risk culture of the place, and the rampant inebriation of visitors and staff. (Yes, they sold alcohol on-site.) Much of the lively film is spent in interviews with past attendees and supervisors—most of whom cheerfully recall the park’s dangers (in a “wow, I can’t believe we survived” kind of way) while soberly acknowledging that it wasn’t a place that should have kept going. Why it kept going is an interesting question in itself, as allegations of corruption and evidence of insurance fraud legal action are mentioned. But it’s in the crazy-stupid anecdotes that the film is at its most…er… hilarious. Don’t be surprised to laugh and laugh at recollections of the “Cannonball Loop” water slide also include that due to the design of the ride, users would frequently be stuck at the top of the enclosed loop, unable to slide further… and with further users coming down the pipe cutting themselves on previous riders’ stuck teeth. There are many more such incidents mentioned in the film, from a pool nicknamed “The Grave Pool” to altercations between visitors and staff. While Action Park is a memory by now, it’s not an uncommon memory to New Jersey residents—as it was the closest and cheapest water park, it attracted crowds that the park was ill-equipped to handle. But what’s just a fond (if sometimes painful) memory for the film’s interviewees can see like an unbelievable tall tale to anyone who wasn’t there and will have trouble believing that such a thing could ever exist in today’s litigious context. Indeed—documentarians Seth Porges and Chris Charles Scott III can’t quite reconcile the allure of the park’s danger with the consequences of its failings: the ending hits both themes in such rapid succession that you can’t help but… laugh. And if you’re laughing throughout the entire film, that’s you struggling to make sense of it all. Ironically, if you think that Class Action Park is the stuff of fiction, rest assured that a movie partially inspired by Action Park does exist as Action Point, starring (who else?) Johnny Knoxville. Alas, it’s not nearly as funny as the documentary, even if it’s a very different kind of laughter.