Closed for Storm

If you enjoy abandoned places but want an in depth story. THIS IS YOUR MOVIE!! It's a beautiful combination of urban exploring and history story telling. It scratches the but what's happening now bug that I feel with abandoned places.

"Closed for Storm" is a full-length documentary that was made by a YouTuber famous for his urban exploration videos on the channel. In other words, his claim to fame is sneaking into various abandoned sites and posting videos of what he finds...something that likely is illegal but apparently is rarely prosecuted. It also is popular among younger internet users. When you know that this is the pedigree of the film, what you see about Jazzland (later called Six Flags New Orleans) makes lots of sense. This is why it feels very heavily padded, is full of grainy clips, is why the interviewees are mostly no-names reminiscing about the park (as opposed to local government or officials from Six Flags) and features a LOT of footage of him breaking into the park and wandering about the place. I watched the film to learn about the damage to the park and to learn what was going to be done with the rotting park...but this really takes up a tiny portion of the film and is best read about on the Internet. As a result, I would not recommend it to anyone other than urban explorer devotees...many of which inexplicably give this poorly made documentary plenty of 10s...though objectively speaking it is clearly flawed and far from perfect.

Excellent documentary that extends the story the amusement Park. This documentary really highlighted how bureaucracy and systemic racism continuously kills the pride of a city and community after a devastating hurricane by ignoring blight and the needs of its citizens.

Weird little documentary that tells the story of what happened to Six Flags over NOLA. Interesting but amateurish. The soundtrack is incredibly annoying - like it was borrowed from some 1950's school science film.

Sad to see things like a theme park fall into a derelict state, but government mismanagement and corruption is what New Orleans is known for. Even other corrupt, Democrat cities like New York can handle being hit with category 3 hurricanes, like Katrina was on landfall. New Orleans is controlled by such malicious, inept, morons that only crooks can be successful there. That is what this story is about, but it is not presented this way. The derelict park actually represents New Orleans and local residents more accurately now, than it did while it was owned an operated by out-of-state owners. Still a somewhat entertaining watch if you like ghost town type stories.

I am a huge fan of Jake, Bright Sun Films, and the Abandoned series he makes on YouTube. This takes his concept from that Abandoned series to a long-form feature-length medium on all major platforms for the first time. The documentary itself focuses on the rise and fall of New Orleans first major theme park. Jake does a fantastic job finding people from the community and interviewing them. He digs to the soul behind the abandoned structures. He also does a great job giving us the history of the park before Katrina so we as viewers care about the park as much as the people in the community did. My biggest nitpick would be I found the last 15 minutes to be a little flat. The producers on the project gambled choosing to follow a few specific people trying to repurpose the land; no one got the ending they wanted. The gamble could have paid off, but even as is, I think there was a missed opportunity to show more of the heartbreak and disappointment this plot of land has been subjected to for the last 15 years. The last few scenes in the documentary are flat because we didn't get a deep emotional pay-off on one of the narratives they set up. Digging in deeper on the heartbreak and frustration of those people that were trying to repurpose the land may have elevated the final moments of this documentary just a touch. If you are a fan of Abandoned on YouTube, this is a must-watch. If you are just a general fan of documentaries, this holds its own without any knowledge of Jake's previous work. I highly recommend this to anyone interested in Katrina, New Orleans, theme parks, or urban exploration. For a first feature-length documentary this is an amazing achievement and Jake could easily find himself helming more documentaries in the future! Well done and keep up the great work! Strengths Jake is a fantastic narrator (A+++) *** His slow and clear cadence works perfectly with the somber abandoned material, sweeping drone footage, and delivery of heartbreaking backstory; this is a skill he seasoned with hours of YouTube narration and he has a gift for narration*** Interesting and diverse interviews cut well against other footage and peppered throughout Great footage. The drone work on the abandoned park is fantastic. They also mine old footage to juxtapose the current dilapidated state of rides against the vibrant footage from the past. Very well cut and one of the strengths of both this documentary and the Abandoned series! Weaknesses At times the score overpowered the narration early; they did seem to dial this down later but I found a few spots in the beginning that the narration was fighting with the score The last 15 minutes was a bit of a letdown.

I think the biggest problem with this is that there is no story here. It opens with title cards and lots of dramatic music suggesting a scandal or mismanagement and then... there is nothing. If you remember this park you might get some nostalgic enjoyment from seeing video of the park and if you are young enough to not remember Katrina then you might get something from seeing the footage of that, but beyond that there is nothing here. The film opens with no context, with the first interviewee mentioning a lot of people and names that we don't know and won't hear anything else about as the film goes on. The film is very superficial as a whole, companies and people are mentioned as if we should know more about them but you don't actually learn very much about the park other than, a park opened, it wasn't very profitable, there was a hurricane, the park closed. It feels like the only research done was to quickly scan the parks Wikipedia page. Technically the sound levels aren't great and more the dramatic music at times drowns out the talking head interviews and the interviewees as a whole aren't particularly revealing of anything or engaging. At times some of the footage just seems random and out of context, we get someones home video of them driving around which goes on for several minutes and then someone in a back room at the closed park excited to find some Halloween decorations in the trash there. It does seem very padded out, I think you could probably edit this down to about 30 minutes and not lose anything of worth. The narration is sparse to the extent that its a surprise when something is said. Overall this feels like a student project with decent production values and, for me, was generally lacking.

What an awesome movie put out by one of the best young minds in the industry. Easily one of my favorite documentaries. From the footage shot to the people they chose to interview it was all class A stuff.

I thoroughly enjoyed this documentary from Jake at Brightsun Films. The stunning footage of the now abandoned Six Flags New Orleans site juxtaposed with the scenes of the now decaying facility tell a tremendous story. The documentary does a great job of tracing the history of the redevelopment journey of the former Six Flags site. I loved the musical score and highly recommend the movie overall.

Enjoyed it. Very well made. Sad to see what happened to the park.