Fantasia Film Festival 2020: Class Action Park

What stories do you tell from your childhood? This critic would be willing to bet that the very best childhood memories go hand-in-hand with the summer. Summer was the time when kids ruled and the hours of the day were dedicated to doing everything and nothing, whatever we and our friends could come up with. For the kids that went to Action Park in the summers of the 80s and 90s, nostalgia takes the form of thrilling water slides and a freezing dip in a spring-fed pool.

Those memories, for some, are also marked with burns and ripped skin from unforgiving concrete, dislocated shoulders, and the sheer terror of being pushed off in the literal deep-end (and a little too close for comfort, in a brush with death). Class Action Park is just as much about the dark side of childhood, as it is the potent drug of nostalgia.

Class Action Park is the first-ever feature-length documentary to explore the legend and legacy of the infamous Action Park. For New York area youths of the 80s and 90s, Action Park was a rite of passage. Safely beyond the reach of worrying parents, youngsters entered a lawless place of danger, thrills, and questionable decisions. The rides were sometimes deadly and adult supervision was blissfully absent. Battle scars obtained on the dangerous rides of Action Park were just as much a part of the experience as long summer lines and flings between the teen park employees. In this documentary, viewers get a peek behind the curtain at the origins of the park and into the memories of the people who ran it, the teens that worked and played there, and the victims of the very real (and frequent) tragedies that occurred during the park’s heyday.

Class Action Park enjoyed its International Premiere on August 22 and the 2020 Fantasia Film Festival. The film was also an official selection of the 2020 Florida Film Festival and is set to hit streaming on HBO Max at the end of August. Class Action Park is directed by Seth Porges and Chris Charles Scott.

Building a Film Around a Legend

Even for those of us that are too young to have memories of Action Park, many of us are familiar with the infamous attractions by way of the Internet. In a way, Action Park has ascended to its own urban legend status in the form of countless listicles and viral images of the park’s most insane slides. To speak to Action Park is to speak to the very notion of legends and their seductive qualities.

For the kids that attended Action Park, the legends of broken bones and deadly rides was what got them into crowded lines in the summer. The ability to take on the craziest rides, face danger head-on, and live to tell about it would make legends out of suburban kids. Making legends is what made Action Park. As for the younger set, Action Park has fully faded into modern myth. It’s a cautionary tale. An example of a time and thrill that is too distant and extreme for any of us to understand; a time before helicopter parents and basic health and safety regulations.

In Class Action Park, the horrors of Action Park are captured through a delightfully childlike lens. The viewer is treated to bright and colorful ads, the same that lured in a generation of kids. Whenever the traumatic injuries and events are discussed, they are presented as animated segments and distilled for easier consumption by the viewer. As a 90s kid, not of the Action Park era, this critic couldn’t help but feel coddled. That, even now, I was being shielded from the danger of Class Action Park. The only moments of the film that maintained the real weight of that danger were the faces and words of those that had experienced harm, or close brushes with it, in their past.

It’s a fascinating way to put together a documentary film. It doesn’t glamorize the park by mystifying it. Rather, the film speaks in code. If you know, you know. Older audiences will remember the insanity of their youth. Younger people will be awestruck and amazed that such a thing was allowed to happen. Audiences of any age and perspective will be struck by the fact that Class Action Park could never happen today.

The Action Park Generation and the Power of Nostalgia

Class Action Park is the zany product of a generational shift. In my viewing of the film, my jaw went slack as those interviewed recounted horrific experiences of personal injury and endangerment. One particularly harrowing account describes a park attendee that was killed when her speedboat flipped and she was electrocuted by an exposed wire that was underwater. Hearing a story like that triggers a montage of headlines and news stories, all with some epic settlement or court case attached. Such was not the world of Class Action Park.

There is no doubt or debate that the story of Action Park is a story of gross negligence, corruption, and reckless endangerment. It’s also the story of youth. Nostalgia is a potent potion and has a way of coloring experiences in a way that turns really bad days into funny memories. While the intent and message of Class Action Park is clear, there is a haze of nostalgia that tints the events to a more palatable hue. The individuals that are telling their “war stories” are not shaken, upset, or traumatized — they’re proud and reverent (with some exceptions). It’s an odd sort of triumph for the winners in a conflict of shady business dealings to be children. Like a demented Dennis the Menace fever dream, kids were the ones that stepped up and braved Action Park. It’s heroic.

It’s batshit insane, too.

Conclusion: Class Action Park

Sure, Class Action Park is an exposé of one of the biggest trainwrecks ever gotten away with. Sure, it’s a snapshot of the last reckless generation. The nostalgia is present…it’s just not recognizable. Class Action Park is a lot of things, but what it really works best as is the introduction to a vital question. What does it mean to be at the dividing line between the generation that grew up chasing danger and the generation that understands a certain baseline societal responsibility? What did we lose when regulations stopped letting kids get electrocuted or pulverized in water slides?

Class Action Park is laugh-out-loud funny and nervous chuckle-inducing. Like the feeling of letting go of a rope swing, every white knuckle moment is met with a release. Underneath all of its greater implications and questions, Class Action Park is equally intelligent and fun! A top documentary for the year!

Have you heard of Action Park? What crazy, death-defying stunts did you pull as a kid? Let us know in the comments!

Class Action Park will hit HBO Max on August 27, 2020.

Watch Class Action Park