User reviews

Amusingly bad 80's zombie flick in which its main star spends the majority of her time wandering the halls of a mental institution in her underwear.

There is plenty of cheesy gore, nutty dialogue and cartoonish imagery to please fans of the genre.

Best moment: Two cops discussing their favourite donuts, oblivious to an approaching horde of zombies.

This is not going to be a surprise, but here we have yet another horror movie that had potential, but in the end just cannot deliver all the goods. It has a semi decent story, but there are to many plot holes and unanswered questions. There are zombies in the movie, however, for the most part they are confined to the end. The movie also feels longer than its hour and a half runtime. I mean I just watched the movie "Inferno" and according to its runtime it is over ten minutes longer, but it felt a lot shorter. To the story, it starts out with a confrontation between two doctors at the dead pit of the title. One of the doctors is a tad insane and seemingly doing random experiments with the patients at this insane asylum. Well the one doctor shoots this doctor and instead of reporting the happenings to the authorities he seals the now dead crazy doctor in the basement of this building and you are thinking "why didn't he go to the police"? Because if he did there would not be much of a movie now would there silly. Flash years later and the place is running again and a new patient who is calling herself Jane Doe because of memory loss seems to spark a return of our good doctor from the basement. He is soon out beginning his experiments again with his sights set on revenge of the man who killed him. So that is how the movie progresses, for a bit there I was worried there would not be much time for the zombie attack at the end and that it would be just a small pointless scene, however, I just think the rest of the movie dragged to much because the zombie scene at the end is a bit good. On the whole if this movie was just paced better and they got to the zombies quicker it would have been better, but as it is it is a not all that bad, not all that good movie.

Hell.. I have watched scores of horror films of all genres, liked many and trashed quite a few, in this very portal. All said and done, this too is a '80s style horror film, with gore, campy effects, shambling zombies, evil doctors, half-naked females, scary hospitals and whatnot. There are loopholes aplenty, but can we really expect logic in a horror film? They are there for our entertainment - love them or leave them.

In this film, the hospital scenes are satisfyingly eerie, the nurses and orderlies expectedly intimidating, and the lead female, Cheryl Lawson, attractive enough. Amazingly, in the apparently high security asylum, male and female patients freely intermingle, and even visit each others rooms. Wow.. now that creates certain possibilities :) Cheryl is endowed with a delicious figure and attractive good looks.. plus she runs around the corridors at night, wearing bikini-cut panties and a short slip. Yummy! Amazingly, neither IMDb nor Wikipedia have any info on Cheryl till date. Seems a pity, considering that she carried the entire film on her.. umm.. shoulders?(I am kidding).

Watchable for the antics of Cheryl, the evil doctor and the creepy hospital building, if nothing else. The idea of drenching zombies with holy water seems to be a novel one. Usually, they appear to be indestructible..

Post-script: Can anybody explain to me why Hollywood zombies always want to attack and eat living humans? I mean, whats the logic behind it? Oh Jesus.. again I am searching for logic.. how stupid of me :)

I happened to fall over "The Dead Pit" in a secondhand store that deals in movies and music close to where I live, and the zombie on the DVD cover made me curious, so I picked it up, being a zombie aficionado, of course I had to.

And as I came home and watched this, I was not at all amused or entertained in the least. This movie, despite being from 1989 (not that there is anything wrong with old movies), just failed to scare or entertain in any possible way. And I do think that even back in 1989, this movie wouldn't have been considered anything even remotely to being scary.

I was hoping to see more zombies, but ended up with a doctor who was shot in the head, then returned from the dead with these wonderfully red glowing eyes, and a pit full of "zombies" - who were essentially just regular people with really bad make-up jobs.

The storyline was fairly straight forward, and fairly average for a horror movie from that particular time of age. If you, like me, have grown up watching horror movies in the 80's, then you will know exactly what I mean - as this is the essence of late 80's horror movie. I am regarding this in the sense of plot, execution and characters.

You might find some enjoyment in the movie if you are a fan of Jeremy Slate or Cheryl Lawson - providing you even know who these people are to begin with.

For a zombie movie, then "The Dead Pit" is a massive disappointment, and you'd best stay clear of this unless you have absolutely nothing else to watch. There are far better horror movies from the late 80's that surpass this movie by a mile and beyond.

It's fair to say I've earned my stripes in regard to zombie movies. Through the course I've taken to delve deep into horror, I've seen countless titles given the highest honors to the lowest scum-of-the- earth production values cinema has ever witnessed. From A to Z grade, however, there stands a few shining stars that are worth discussing. "The Dead Pit" is one of these last glimmers of hope. Brett Leonard, the man responsible for both writing and directing 1992's "The Lawnmower Man," made his directorial debut with this undead feature; he did a fine job in presenting it.

The story begins at a mental hospital in California. Dr. Ramzi, a deranged doctor at the facility, has been murdering and experimenting on patients in the basement. Dr. Gerald Swan learns of his sinister activities; in fear of jeopardizing his career at the hospital, he decides to eliminate Dr. Ramzi and bury the truth for 20 years. Jane Doe, an unidentified woman suffering from amnesia, is admitted to the facility. After an earthquake occurs, visions allow her to slowly uncover the dark secret buried deep beneath.

This movie seems to function greatly for a variety of reasons. Although a few typical 80s production clichés exist they all seem to apply perfectly in the given scenarios the plot uncovers - the use of smoke machines in correlation with intense back lighting are exhausted thoroughly. The bumbling policemen standing outside discussing donuts was also a nice touch. I expect certain predictable elements to exist within the era I'm experiencing. It all works tremendously. The vacant hospital wings that were chosen as set pieces for this film are outstanding. The director clearly knew what he was doing; as a viewer, I felt isolated. The cast of actors/actresses hired to fill the character roles did a decent job - certainly no Emmy nominations to be had, but a solid enough attempt in their own right. As far as the musical score is concerned, expect typical, 80s off-beat harmonics - which, in my opinion, is what I look forward to. Clearly anything with a dark melody is par for the course.

This film can be classified as a zombie flick but it requires a bit of patience from the viewer. The pace seems sluggish for the first 40 minutes of the film but picks up nicely. There is plenty of violence and gore to satiate the blood thirst of any gore hound. The special effects and makeup are worth noting. Although I reserve a special pedestal for Tom Savini, the artists responsible for "The Dead Pit" are truly remarkable and come in a close second - their work displayed here is even a few notches down from , in my humble opinion, the greatest zombie masterpiece of all time, George A. Romero's 1985 feature "Day of the Dead." I consider this a true accomplishment; many Z grade zombie flicks from the 80s, primarily ones with an Italian-schlock quality (I'm not including Lucio Fulci when I speak of schlock, so please don't send a lynch mob to my doorstep!), fail miserably in achieving the same success.

When it comes to zombie movies in general, I think most could agree that Romero was responsible for reinventing and trend-setting a particular brand of undead fiend in 1968's "Night of the Living Dead." I don't consider it a crime if his influence is shared by directors and production teams alike. Although not in the top 5 of classic zombie re- tellings, "The Dead Pit" surely makes the top 10 - give it a try and you won't be disappointed.

With heroic lines like: "Come on; we got a water balloon to drop on these a**holes," I doubt this movie doubled as a money pit.

For a movie that took itself Deadly serious, it had its share of mostly unintentional and some intentional humor. Occasionally, I was laughing at the unintentional kind, but recognized the true attempts at about two jokes. And overall, I was shocked this was made at the end of the 80s.

Well, it started off that way. This is the exact kind of scary movie I loved watching as a kid in the first half of the 1980s. The kind that scared me to death for its low budget, amble amount of gore, bad acting and an overpowering antagonist. So, I could easily see this movie being made in the late 70s, early 80s...NOT a decade later. Unless it was homage to the many subgenre(s) I loved so much.

But, that's giving this too much credit. And thought. This movie is a paradox in which I can't tell if it's honoring multiples of movies, ripping them off or oblivious to all horror in the 80s. So, well done, Film. I think.

The film centers around an actually named Jane Doe character, a new patient to a mental hospital who may/may not have a link to the place's sordid past and cover up of the cold open's tale of a so-brilliant doctor he, himself, goes insane while studying death and using the film's title. He was previously stopped 20 years prior, but Jane just has to go digging when she should've let dead things lie.

Truthfully, this movie's so odd, I don't know what to fully think. On one hand, it's so creepily made, it did frighten me as I recalled my past of watching these B-Movie horrors in my room late at night while my disapproving parents were asleep. And on the other hand, the acting's so bad, the pacing and padding were pathetic, the lead's so objectified I thought she was a former porn star and the tone/genre keeps shifting so erratically, I never knew what movie I was watching.

That all said, despite this being made in the late 80s, unbelievably released in the 90s and really deserved to be one of the countless horror movies to debut between 1978-1981, it's recommended. You can't take it as seriously as the creators did and just let your scared, little inner-child watch as the horror reveals all secrets.

***

Final thoughts: To avoid spoilers and advising the many films within this script, I propose a drinking game. Take a shot for every single movie this mimicked or flat-out stole from. Now, you won't get drunk immediately, or swiftly, but I can guarantee, if you're paying attention, you'll be 12 shots deep by the enormously lengthy climax settles in.

Fun insane zombie crossed mad doctor style late 80s low-budget horror with hazy atmospheric lighting of illuminating blues and an otherworldly music score sure to drive anyone crazy. Think along the lines of someone banging pots and in doing so, capturing the suffocating madness of the institute. One of those - forget about making sense of it too, as with little thought in its narrative and visuals, it's hellish abandonment throws everything at you, but the kitchen sink.

After a minor quake breaks a seal of a hidden tomb in the cellar of a mental hospital. A surgeon returns from the dead as a demonic figure (who can make his eyes glow red whenever he wants). Still dressed up in his scrubs, and making sure he's wearing rubber gloves (a hard to break habit I guess?). He goes about continuing his horrific experiments on the physical brain and its connection to the mind on the unknowing staff and patients. While also scarring, and constantly showing himself (even waving) to a new patient that suffers from amnesia and who spends quite lot of time wandering the corridors in a revealing attire (that comes to the forefront in one daft dream sequence), or simply freaking out. You can see why they casted Cheryl Lawson. Her character's amnesia and hypnosis sittings organized by the head doctor (Jeremy Slater who comes out the best of the lot) are a tool for a predictably contrived plot twist that shouldn't come as a surprise.

What did though was the excessive, delirious third act, as the surgeon's ghouls come out from a glowing green pit and go on a gory rampage tearing people apart. The special effects (miniature model sets) and makeup do provide some killer goodies at the backend, like open brain surgery and skin melting. Did the latter make sense, not really, but nothing does here.

Brett Leonard (Lawnmower Man, Hideaway) gives us in his directorial debut a pastiche of De Moro's HELLHOLE and Fulci's CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD, and it holds it's own with those two heavy-weights from opposite poles of the extreme-film spectrum. This movie has raving mental patients, psychotic doctors, people being buried alive, ritual murders in boiler rooms, flesh-hungry zombies, high-quality gore effects, and hot women. Very atmospheric for taking place in a clichéd setting = a mental asylum. Probably the creepiest one caught on film. There are dead bodies all over this movie. Amazing dialog like this doesn't hurt either: -"My God! You're a Doctor! You're supposed to be saving lives!" -"I've done life. Now I'm doing death." Not a disappointment for zombie fans looking for something different, or slasher fans doing the same. Solid. A must see.

The Dead Pit 1989 (*VHS "R") – Directed by Brett Leonard An evil doctor that experiments on his mentally ill patients is entombed in the basement of an abandoned wing. 20 years later, an amnesia patient known only as Jane Doe (Cheryl Lawson), arrives. An earthquake breaks the seal releasing the doctor to continue his dirty work. The dead patients also rise to wreck havoc.

The biggest complaint I heard from other reviewers was about Lawson's acting ability, which I do not think is that bad considering this is her first feature. She is not Scream Queen material though and would be better suited for a Lifetime movie. (She won acting awards for this role and has since had a long career as a stunt woman). And why is she running around in her underwear? Not only would this be considered unethical treatment for patients, but since when are bikini panties standard issue? She would be wearing granny undies. One size fits all… This movie suspiciously looks a lot like Nightmare on Elm Street, which was released 5 years prior to this. Our Jane Doe looks identical to Elm Street's heroine Nancy Thompson. And the scenes where she is running in a dreamlike state evading the evil man in her dreams… But what really made me take notice was the scene where she is following her recently deceased friend only to be lead to Freddy, uhhh….I mean the evil doctor.

This venture was a bit disappointing for director Leonard (Lawnmower Man, Feed) especially considering he co-wrote the script. There are a few script problems that should have been tweaked during script rewrites. Why do the doctors and nurses speak to patients like best friends? If there is limited funding for this mental institute, then why do they admit someone with amnesia and other minor illnesses? How likely is it that not one, but two patients are snooping around and solving mysteries? The biggest problem is that I guessed the surprise ending early on in the film.

And while the film touches on controversial subjects like performing illegal lobotomies on patients, but never digs deep enough to leave a lasting impression on the viewer. There were a few scenes cut from the R rated version I watched such as an open brain surgery. Hopefully these scenes will be added in the upcoming DVD release.

What stands out in the film are the top notch special effects provided by Ed Martinez. The zombies were the most exciting part of the movie although they come late at the 67 minute mark. You know the fun starts once the zombies emerge from the dead pit bald, rotting, and slimy. The patients later learn that a little bit of holy water goes a long way and we are treated to many melting faces.

My favorite scene was toward the end when the "good" doctor (played by the late Jeremy Slate) walks down a hall hearing this disgusting gurgling, choking noise. When he enters the bathroom, it is covered with blood and the nurse walks towards him looking not so hot at the moment.

Overall, I think they didn't try hard enough in the first part of the movie. With 2 writers on board, they should have been able to make a clever script with cool dialogue. They have a mental institution, a nun, amnesia, zombies, etc and they still struggled to make it interesting. Maybe they could have shown the orderlies and nurses being abusive towards the patients to make the first half of the film more dramatic and the zombies killing them in the second half bittersweet. Or why not add more religious themes since they had the nun patient blessing holy water? And if they insist on making Jane run around in panties, then why not sleaze it up to make it more fun? There were several different directions this film could have gone, but seemed to just tiptoe around the subjects instead of tackling them head on.

Favorite Quote: None. The dialogue was lackluster. And shamefully, it wasn't even goofy enough to make me laugh.

Extras: *This was the VHS version with no extras other than a few trailers at the beginning. (It won "The Best Video Box of the Year" by Entertainment magazine when it was first released). A special DVD release is in the process now with SFX artist Ed Martinez providing commentary and SFX extras. Commentary has already been recorded with director Brett Leonard, producer Gimel Everett, and the late actor Jeremy Slate. See the Ed Martinez Interview with HorrorYearbook for details.

To hear about the upcoming The Dead Pit DVD release and the unfortunate passing of actor Jeremy Slate, read distributor Code Red's Blog here: http://www.codereddvd.com/nublog/.

Bottom Line: A must see for Leonard fans interested in his filmography. Has some noteworthy scenes, but fails to be controversial or very scary.

Rating: 7/10 Molly Celaschi www.HorrorYearbook.com

This can't be really taken TOO seriously, mostly because of the cliches in, but the atmosfear (in a way, similar to Re-animator) is deadly and creepy. This is quite nice zombie movie. If you are a horror fan, this is definately recommended.

Twenty years after an insane sadistic doctor is shot dead and walled into the basement, a young amnesiac (Stuntwoman Cheryl Lawson) is admitted to the same nut house. When an earthquake frees the doctor from his prison, he resumes his devious work. I fully knew what I was getting into when I saw that Brett Leonard (who has done "the Lawnmower Man", "Hideaway", and "Man-thing") was responsible for this. And for the most part I was right, but then something strange happened in the last 30 minutes, I actually saw an inkling of... competence (shock horror) Of course that didn't last long and all it left me with was the feeling that I'd rather be watching "Dr. Giggles", no I take that back NO ONE should have to sit through THAT 'movie' again.

Eye Candy: Cheryl Lawson gets the shirt shot off her back

My Grade:D+

Confident direction and a good deal of atmosphere cannot disguise the fact that The Dead Pit, the debut from director Brett Leonard, makes very little sense. The film's confusing narrative sees a beautiful young amnesiac experiencing a series of horrifying hallucinations and nightmares whilst staying at an institution for the mentally ill. But what the poor girl doesn't realise is that the bloody surgeon that is haunting her dreams is actually real, the reanimated spirit of a murderous doctor who was walled up in the asylum basement twenty years earlier. Freed by a recent earthquake, the nasty doc is out to complete his gory experiments whilst seeking revenge on the psychiatrist who entombed him.

Quite how the malevolent doc is able to return to life is never adequately explained; neither is what he is trying to achieve with his messy work, or how he manages to remain invisible to everyone but Jane (the identity chosen by our forgetful heroine), And with far too many contrivances necessary to wrap the whole affair up tidily for the finalé, the film is just too far-fetched for its own good.

The silly ending expects the viewer to suspend belief as it reveals that a) the killer surgeon is actually Jane's father b) the surgeon is able to command an army of zombies c) the zombies can only be destroyed with holy water d) a huge water tower stands over the asylum e) one of the patients is a demolition expert f) another is a nun and knows how to consecrate water, and g) the raw materials for a bomb can be found in the asylum's workshop!!! It doesn't take a genius to figure out what is going to happen, or to realise that such a string of coincidences are astronomically unlikely (that's the understatement of the century).

On a positive note, lead actress Cheryl Lawson is very tasty and spends much of the film running around in a pair of white panties and a cropped T-shirt so flimsy that in one scene it is torn from her body by water from a hose. Leonard also sees fit to include some fairly decent gore to liven things up a little, but the gratuitous female flesh and bloody effects still aren't enough to detract from the lousy storytelling.

Director Leonard would go on to have some success with his Stephen King adaptation The Lawnmower Man, but his career seems to have gone into a nosedive recently after giving sci-fi fans what is reputed to be the worst of the Highlander franchise (and boy, it must be really bad to stink more than the second one!).

An avid horror fan this one has somehow evaded me since 1989, until I picked up a copy on VHS. Set in a mental institution (always a good location for horror movies) The Dead Pit delivers zombies, a crazed, evil doctor, a buxom heroine, lots of gore, some laughs (some possibly unintentionally?) and a very good use of colours (blue, green and red) 1980's style. This is a B-movie so expect some cardboard acting (Stephen Gregory Foster in particular), and some of the special effects/make up looks a bit cheap, it is also perhaps a tad long, but it is fun, perhaps best watched with a few beers.

Short and sweet.

Watching this in 1989 it was, even then, a b-flick with many problems. Watching it in 20xx it simply doesn't hold up the way other comparable flicks of its era do.

The biggest issue with The Dead Pit is its 1hr 42min length, where the first hour is painfully slow. Most movies that necessitate that much time for developing back story will at least throw the viewer a couple of bones, but this is really, really dull for nearly that entire time and could easily have omitted a good chunk of this portion.

Noting that other reviewers are keen on the special fx aspect, I felt quite the opposite. While there are a couple of worthwhile scenes, the fx are on par with the rest of the flick, and weren't even the upper echelon of the 80's, let alone top of the pyramid.

For horror oficionados, it should be watched, if for no other reason than part of the total lexicon of 80's horror. If the first hour was not so droll, the rating would be higher, but not by much.

I saw "The Dead Pit" first time some 15 years ago and since late at night on television. I couldn't remember the title until few years ago, and recently I manage to find it on DVD.

Surprisingly magic is still there. Without getting too much into plot, movie is about doctor who performs illegal brain surgeries until his college kills him for moral reasons, sealing him into his "Dead Pit". Twenty years after, Jane Doe (girl who lost her memories) comes into the very same hospital. Soon after, earthquake crack the wall of "Dead Pit" and good old doctor comes back to life, unleashing his horde of undead.

I don't know why many people complain about this movie, seems they are forgetting that this is '80 low budget movie (times when literally everything you thought of could be put on screen). It's a descent '80 zombie flick, bit unusual because of it's narrative style and nightmarish atmosphere it has. It was a first feature of now well known director Brett Leonard, who manage to capture otherworldly atmosphere in what is now considered cult classic. His obvious influences are Wes Craven and his Elm Street (director acknowledged this in audio commentary for Dead Pit DVD). Story gets bit spread here and there, but it never gets too confusing nor it tries to be more then it actually is - a low budget horror flick.

Altho movie starts bit slow (but it has some nice scenes to keep you interested for the first half of the movie), it really comes to life in second half when all hell breaks lose and zombies start to rampage through asylum. Characters aren't deeply developed, but they are interesting enough to keep you watching at screen (good looking Cheryl Lawson helps in that department. Did I mention she walks around in her underwear most of the time?)

SF goes from terrific to silly, but most of the time, they are looking quite good, especially when it comes to gore scenes. It's bloody and will satisfy every zombie fan, because FX here have all the necessary requirement for good zombie gorefest.

Highlight of this little flick are cinematography, which was really well done and music score, which goes from moody to creepy. (Cheryl Lawson looks are also big highlight of this movie.)

Bad: Some scenes are bit longer then they should be, some plot elements that aren't really needed and bit corny ending, and "innovative" way of killing zombies that might cause laugh for hardcore zombie fans.

Overall, it's a descent flick, worth checking out if you are fan of horror movies and for some reason you haven't seen it already.

The acting is terrible but the most offending aspect of this is how bad the story is laid out. While our main character whines, we miss why any of it is happening and why we should care. There's never any answers, just more whining.

Iritating soundtrack and sound effects ,and the story is not very good Gore effects are good but that cannot save this mediocre film