Douglas Cheek’s C.H.U.D. is admirable in that it houses style and tact but doesn’t attempt to do the monumental as the director contents himself with taking a standard, B-movie premise and polishing it to near perfection. The quality of the script is reflected in the numerous big-name actors who agreed to the project, regardless of how minimal the role. Though not a horror masterpiece, C.H.U.D. is nevertheless one of the more satisfactory political satires to come out of the genre.
After a SoHo soup kitchen cook named A. J. (Daniel Stern) reports to Captain Bosch (Christopher Curry) that some of his patrons, those which reside in the city’s sewage system, mysteriously disappeared two weeks prior, the duo attempt to account for the missing persons. However, upon the discovery of a political cover-up resulting in grotesque, subhuman mutations of the city’s indigenous population, Bosch is told by the police chief, O’Brien (Eddie Jones), and the Commissioner (John Ramsey), to keep a tight lip. Yet, as murders reportedly committed by monsters emerging from the city’s sewers begin to pile in from throughout the city, Bosch and A. J. attempt to unveil the conspiracy before the situation gets out of hand.
Unlike many antiestablishment films which attempt to indict political authority by merely posing one primary conceit, C.H.U.D. convolutes its symbolism while never losing focus. The C.H.U.D.’s–Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers–are the result of a political money-making scheme by those in office, entitled the “Contamination Hazard Urban Disposal” project, in which biological wastes are stored in the city sewers at a price. However, not only are C.H.U.D.’s metaphors for the underbelly of the city at large as well as political corruption (cf. the opening to David Lynch’s Blue Velvet), but they serve as a scathing symbol for how the elite view the lesser populaces which they rule as the titular characters are portrayed as literal monsters whose plights are adamantly ignored by those in power. The conscientious screenwriters even had the mind to fittingly name their central character after ol’ Hieronymus, painter of Hell, as Cheek manages to squeeze in homages to Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and James Cameron’s Aliens.
The actors play their parts seventy-five percent straight while permitting the remaining quarter to be posited with tongue firmly planted in cheek as the witty, but nonetheless exploratory, dialogue bounces amid the characters. Case in point, Lauren Daniels (Kim Greist) is caught by her boyfriend, George Cooper (John Heard), applying makeup to a blemish on her behind. When questioned what she is doing, she nonchalantly explicates that cosmetics are used to veil such imperfections. The film is rounded out, giving is a sound, satisfactory feel in lieu of its toss away premise, as it seamlessly posits countless incidences of such rhetorical (albeit satirical) honestly.
As a dog ear to the production, C.H.U.D. serves as an exercise in cinema trivia as the viewer will inevitably catch him or herself saying, “Oh my God, ________ looks so young” as John Heard, Christopher Curry, John Goodman, Jay Thomas, Kim Greist, Patricia Richardson, Daniel Stern, Eddie Jones, among others, continually introduce their shiny, unwrinkled faces.
Don’t get me wrong, Douglas Cheek’s C.H.U.D. isn’t a masterpiece by any means but it does rise above much B-movie fare which all-too-often contents itself with merely being a sound effort in every conceivable aspect. What is intriguing about Cheek’s production is the obvious creativity and patience behind it as the filmmakers made the decision to remain with a standard plot while polishing the work’s finer points. Put simply, as far as political horror satires go, C.H.U.D. is one of the most satisfactory efforts to date.
Trivia tidbit: Cheek’s counterculture effort obviously pricked up enough liberal ears to get him a job years later as editor at Disinformation where he would to tidy up many of the left-wing production company’s investigative documentaries.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
