‘Class Action Park’ trailer is released

For an amusement park that’s been shuttered for over 20 years, there sure is a lot of buzz about Action Park. The eagerly anticipated documentary Class Action Park has a release date and a new trailer; the film will premiere on August 27th on HBO Max, HBO’s relatively new streaming service. The documentary was produced separately from the Hulu series in development and from the book, Action Park: Fast Times, Wild Rides, and the Untold Story of America’s Most Dangerous Amusement Park.

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The television series is reported to be a comedy and the book was written by the owner’s son, but the documentary was shot as a piece of investigative journalism (the trailer refers to the film as a “true crime story”). It was produced and directed by Chris Charles Scott and Seth Porges. In the description for the trailer on YouTube, they describe it as: “Shirking the trappings of nostalgia, the film uses investigative journalism, newly unearthed and never-before-seen documents and recordings, original animations, and interviews with the people who lived it to reveal the shocking true story for the first time.” See the trailer below.

While former patrons, well, those who survived, have a certain nostalgia about “the world’s most dangerous amusement park,” people did suffer serious injuries; it is believed that five people died as a result of the park. The park famously hired their own ambulances to take the pressure off surrounding towns (mainly Vernon). The trailer refers to electrocutions, decapitations, and broken vertebrae. The park featured rides and "strange contraptions" that some considered an "ill-conceived death trap." The filmmakers describe is as “the most insane — and possibly the most dangerous — amusement park that ever existed.”

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