Holy shit! The Amish can party.   That’s right.  Amish teens know how to throw a barn-shaking, drug fueled rager. Usually, this column is about movies I find on Netflix that have a common, usually absurd, thread running through them. But “Devil’s Playground” has no peers, so it gets its own column this week..

Experiment Volume 6: Devil’s Playground

Devil's Playground (2002) Dir. Lucy Walker

This documentary shows the highs and lows of Amish teens given a big wet taste of freedom; like a frat party, with straw hats and buggies.  Quick backgrounder: the Amish are a group of Christian fundamentalists who abstain from most of the things you and I take for granted; mainly cars, electricity and Old Navy. And when an Amish boy or girl turns 16 they go through a right of passage called “Rumspringa”. Which is a time when he or she must choose between the Amish way of life or the American way. To do so, these teens are given all the privileges afforded to American teens, like cars, dating, swearing and smoking cigarettes. They also experience a few things only the wildest teens do, like binge drinking, smoking pot and doing Crystal Meth.

Here’s a short list of what I learned about Amish teens in “Devil’s Playground”:

    1. They love Mountain Dew.

    2. They love cigarettes even more. I swear every other scene involved smoking and drinking Mountain Dew.

    3. Amish parties totally rock. Booze, drugs and loud music were as common as black hats at their shindigs.

    4. Amish Drug Dealer is not an oxymoron. And these bastards sound like the mafia in some scenes. Frightening.

This film isn’t just and expose on the “Rumspringa” exploits of the Amish. Although, that is the most entertaining aspect of “Devil’s Playground.” The film also focuses on the spiritual choices these young adults have to make that will affect the rest of their lives. When I was 17, I couldn’t decide what I wanted at Wendy’s, let alone whether I wanted to live a life without electricity or be shunned by my family for driving a car.

The most disturbing aspect involves one misguided youth in the prime of his Amish teens, who has succumbed to the evils of America. By the end of the film he has been a crystal meth addict twice over, dealt the drug to support his habit and has had death threats from other Amish drug dealers. It really hammers home how big of a shit-hole the United States can be and how many vices are out there to ruin you. Thank God my mom made me watch After-School Specials or I could be on the run from the Bearded Mafia as we speak.

“Devil’s Playground” is at times entertaining and jarring. Easily one of the finest Amish drug addiction movies ever made. These kids are so hard-core they make the gun wielding, faux-Amish Harrison Ford played in “Witness” look like a pansy-ass Lutheran.

More NetfliXperiments:

· NetfliXperiments Volume 5: Freak Out!
· NetfliXperiments Volume 4: Leprechaun Party!
· NetfliXperiments Volume 3: Rock 'n' Roll Freakshow
· NetfliXperiments Volume 2: Ouch! My Head Hurts--Foreign Films
· NetfliXperiments Volume 1: Highway Horror & Hillbilly Fishermen

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