Here’s a film for the books. and a rare one to find these days. The Dead Pit (and I’m not talking about the radio show.) is kind of one of those long lost films that never quite made it into the hearts of the horror fans of the world. Truegore.com managed to lend me a copy of the film to check out. And you will start to see more rare horror films reviews on the site thanks to them.
The Dead Pit is an odd film from the late nineteen eighties. The film actually looks like it’s made around that time too. Some might even compare the shots and music to that of an old made for Television horror flick. But this film has the blood and guts that satisfied horror fans of that time.
The Dead Pit is about a girl who has amnesia; which in this case plays an important part in the story of this film. The movie takes place in an insane asylum, and asylum with a shaky past. In the beginning of the film we are given a little back story that lets us know that there once was a doctor who, well lets just say treated his patients like they were lab rats. He is then is shot and entombed along with his experiments in the basement of an mental hospital. Then our story takes us twenty years into the future where this mysterious girl with amnesia shows up, she can’t remember anything, but she obviously has something to do with what happened all those years ago. Well, and Earthquake occurs and the evil doctor once thought to be dead and gone is resurrected from his Dead Pit and begins to kill off anyone he can in the mental hospital with a little help from some evil powers and a few tools the evil doctor won’t stop killing anyone who gets in his way.
Alright well this film kind is pawned off as a zombie film somewhat, and there are zombies in this film that do most of the damage but that really don’t come into the film until about the last part of the second act., Our main villain is the doctor and of course the doctor himself can be considered zombie like as well. One film that comes to mind while viewing this film is a Nightmare on Elm Street Part 3: Dream Warriors. You can kind of say it’s the poor man’s version of that film. Many of the shots are similar, and the doctor has the same effect and attitude as Freddy Kruger would have in his most serious serial killer form with the cheesy jokes aside. One funny thing is that there is also a scene that involves a nightmare, where as the viewer we are bought into the dream for a brief period of time. Another funny thing is that not everyone can see the evil doctor. So there are a lot of Elm Street 3 references and also shots that can be reminiscent of Return of the Living Dead and The Shining as well.
This film is obviously Brett Leonard’s first film. Recently the man has developed a career since this film was made with films like The Lawnmower Man, Man-Thing, Hideaway and the recently grotesque film Feed. With the exception of Feed I have to say that this film is probably his best work. It’s very creepy and has a lot of dark elements that make one feel uncomfortable.
For the most part the acting in the film is pretty good, every one seems to hold their own. Surprisingly enough some of the extras who play the zombies actually seem to have learned a lot from Romero and have adapted the Romero zombie style of walking. The film overall has a decent cast, a cast that seemed to work well together.
In terms of special effects we obviously don’t have any kind of CGI in this film, but we do get a lot of great eighties horror make-up effects. There is plenty of zombie gore to go around and some creepy lighting effects. Plenty of blood as well.
Overall, The Dead Pit is not half bad. It’s nothing great but it works well, and the plot is not half bad. I’ll have to say that it probably is one of those horror films that us older horror fans would be able to enjoy because we grew up around this time, younger horror fans might just pawn it off as an old zombie film that’s boring. I say if your a fan of just zombie films in general you need to see this flick. it takes a lot from the great films of it’s time, but its a great watch none the less.
– Horror Bob
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