Class Action Park

Join us after the screening at 6:45pm for a live Q&A with Co-directors Seth Porges and Chris Scott

Picture this: After a long wait standing in line, you finally sit on the edge of a tube that will shoot you out into water for a blast of fun and merriment. But as you get ready to launch, you notice something: there's no light in this tube. It's pitch black. And as you're pushed in by an underpaid New Jersey teenager, you not only realize that you have no idea what's going on, it's also damn uncomfortable in that tube. It hurts. What was supposed to be fun has now become sheer terror. The 20-30 seconds you spend in it are fucking terrifying and when they're over you're blasted out to a tall drop into a pool of water of questionable upkeep. You're out, you're back on land and definitely the worse for wear. Your heart beats faster, you're in a state of mild shock and you can't believe what you just went through. And then you get back in line.

Welcome to Action Park.

To any New York-area youth of the ’80s and ’90s, Action Park was the place to go each summer. It was affordable, it was wild, and it more than lived up to its name. It was also uncomfortable, took forever to get around and, oh yeah, it was dangerous, an amusement park where the rollercoasters didn't have restraints. You heard people broke bones getting thrown off the Alpine Slide, bruised sliding down Surf Hill too fast, scraped on the Tarzan Swing and drowning in the Tidal Wave Pool and you thought that made it more appealing until you learned it was all true. The definitive story of Action Park has long needed to be told, and with Seth Porges & Chris Charles Scott III's CLASS ACTION PARK,we finally get the whole ugly truth, from those who kept it going even though they knew its dangers to staff members, who enjoyed torturing attendees, and to the teens who made it a summer ritual. But it also digs into the dark side of Action Park, the injuries and deaths that were very real and, sadly, not uncommon. Like its namesake, CLASS ACTION PARK is fun and action-packed, but it's the stories it tells about how people could get away with something so recklessly unregulated, and those whose lives were left affected by it forever that makes it fascinating. It's a hell of a ride. (Matthew Kiernan, former Action Park attendee)