Synopsis
Class Action Park explores the legend, legacy, and truth behind the 1980s water park in Vernon, New Jersey that long ago entered the realm of myth. Known for its dangerous, unsupervised rides and lack of regulation, guests of Action Park expected to walk away with injuries and were lucky if they made it out alive. Shirking the trappings of nostalgia, the film uses investigative journalism, original animations, recordings, and interviews with the people who lived it to reveal the true story of Action Park.
Your Movie Library
Cast
- Chris GethardSelf
- Jason ScottSelf
- Jimmy KimmelSelf (archive footage)
- Johnny KnoxvilleSelf (archive footage)
- Alison BeckerSelf
- John HodgmanNarrator
- Layne StaleySelf (archive footage)
- Jerry CantrellSelf (archive footage)
- Seth PorgesSelf
Recommendations
- 88
RogerEbert.com
A sharp, funny, and bizarrely responsible documentary about an amusement park in Vernon, New Jersey. - 88
Chicago Tribune
The documentary infers a good deal about Mulvihill’s underworld connections and political maneuvers without quite nailing them down. - 83
Entertainment Weekly
The movie's just pure fun; a cock-eyed Valentine to a place so outrageous that death or dismemberment was an actual acceptable risk — but so was the chance to live, as one former security guard fondly recalls, in “an ‘80s movie that was real life. And it will never happen again.” - 70
ScreenCrush
Like the resort it captures, everything in this film is fun and games right up until the moment someone gets seriously injured. - 70
The New York Times
Class Action Park loses its footing somewhat in the closing passages; Scott and Porges don’t seem to know quite how to wrap things up, and the film’s big tonal shift is a turning point that is all but impossible to come back from. - 67
Austin Chronicle
Yet Porges (who pops up as an expert talking head) and co-director Chris Charles Scott III never quite hit an even tone - or rather, there's a big divide, like bouncing along on a kiddy coaster that suddenly turns into a brutal corkscrew with a massive drop at the end. - 60
Wall Street Journal
Narrated quite drolly by comedian John Hodgman, Class Action Park is very funny in its dark way, the interviewees are all charmingly surprised that they lived through their teenage years and there’s a remarkable amount of action footage from the park, considering that it predates cellphones. (The animation by Richard Langberg is amusing, too.) Where the film has a problem is Mulvihill. - 60
New York Magazine (Vulture)
Class Action Park tries with only partial success to capture the dissonance between the funny war stories told about that hazardous site and how awful and tragic it was that young people lost their lives there.
