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The Dead Pit (1989)

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2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
A must see for Leonard fans interested in his filmography, 27 December 2006

Author: Molly Celaschi (carlykristen) from United States

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

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Zombie asylum, 27 March 2005
Author: Dr. Gore (drgore@hotmail.com) from Los Angeles, California

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT*

I bought this video. A disturbed woman gets thrown into an insane asylum where she belongs. She insists she's not crazy. It's hard to believe her when she spends half her time screaming and wailing at whomever is around. This all becomes meaningless when zombies start charging out of the cellar. They were stashed in the pit. The Dead Pit. They want their asylum back and their head zombie won't take no for an answer.

This was OK. There are a few gory spots once the zombies start chugging along. We get to see brains, delicious brains, and lots of them. The movie doesn't really get going until about the halfway point. The first half of the movie we get to see the heroine cry her eyes out at being declared insane as she's foaming at the mouth. "I didn't lose my memory! It was taken from me!" Hmmmm. Same difference? Look babe, you're a loon. Deal with it.

As zombie flicks go, this was decent. It's worth a look.

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1 out of 1 people found the following comment useful :-
Well it does feature a pit and the dead so the title is accurate., 22 June 2008

Author: Aaron1375 from Alabama

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.

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2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
A crossbreed of eighties horror genres, 30 January 2004
Author: RareSlashersReviewed from London

If anyone ‘s checked my list of write-ups, you'll see that mostly I tend to review slashers. The Dead Pitt isn't exactly one of those flicks, but for a fair part of the runtime it incorporates some of the genre's defining elements. There's a psychopathic, surgical masked serial killer that has the trademark heavy breath and only the heroine can see him (Halloween). And some similar themed stalking set pieces and fairly gruesome murders (Just about every slasher that's ever been released!). It's like an insane mix of Exquisite Tenderness, Dawn of the Mummy and strangely enough, The Exorcist! But overall it's a zombie movie; alas it's an original one, with an exquisite surrounding for the plot to unravel in! I suppose the question that you really want answered if you're reading this is, - is it any good?

In the beginning, Jane Doe is admitted to the State Mental asylum (sorry but they don't give us the name) with amnesia. She protests that she hasn't lost her memory, but it was in fact stolen from her! Her arrival spells bad news for the other inmates however, when an earthquake rocks the institution. Soon after, everyone starts freaking out and people begin to disappear although Jane knows that they have been brutally murdered. She begins seeing a deranged looking surgeon with a bullet hole in his head hanging around the complex, but no-one else spots him and the nurses assume that it's just her insanity creating illusions. Dr. Swann tries her under hypnotherapy, which provides some shocking, if a little unexpected results! The only person that does listen to her is Christian, a patient that becomes close friends with the distraught female. The two set out to solve the mystery of the bizarre disappearances, unaware of the evil that's growing in the clock tower opposite them!

This was Cheryl Lawson's first movie and impressively she managed to land herself the lead part. I can't understand why though, she's one of the worst actresses that I've ever seen! She spends most of the runtime in a tight T-shirt (obviously without a bra, I mean come on!) and small knickers. That's great for us because she's lick-lippingly gorgeous and exceptionally well endowed, but it's pretty unflattering for any female to have to dress like that more than once in her movie debut. Tight clothes and good looks are still no substitute for talent and sadly watching her unconvingly wine and warble her way through the script can become almost nauseating at times! The rest of the cast is equally unimpressive and the only real ‘stars' are the extras that play the deluded inmates of the asylum. Some of the portrayals of dementia are fairly conclusive and add a welcome feeling of uneasiness to the proceedings.

Director Brett Leonard didn't disappear after this like the myriad of other horror helmers from the eighties. Instead he managed to climb on to better things; most noticeably Lawnmower Man. It's obvious from his experimental photography that he could indeed handle his place in ‘the hot seat', although at times he struggles to create suspense when it felt like it was most needed. He also co-wrote the screenplay, which somewhat lowers his credibility, because it has more holes than a keep-net! For example: How did a doctor that was locked in a basement with a bullet in his head manage to find the time to erase Jane's memory? How can he be dead for twenty-one years and only rot slightly? How did the zombies manage to take the distributor caps from the car engines to prevent escape, aren't they supposed to be the walking DEAD? And most importantly, were they deliberately aiming for paroxysms of laughter with their method for stopping the hordes of zombies? It has to be seen to be believed! Answers on a postcard please…

The Dead Pitt is essentially a patchwork of a movie, and not just because it attempts to be a successful crossbreed of horror sub-genres. The excellent lighting that is evident in the opening scenes seems to inexplicably evade the rest of the movie. The plot seems to crumble from imaginative to downright inept and it flies back and fourth from sluggish to energetic throughout. Surprisingly enough, the BBFC – who were at their strictest in the eighties - were implausibly lenient when they gave this an 18 certificate, they left an astonishing amount of gore unedited and the story benefits from it's presence.

A claustrophobic and affectively eerie atmosphere is created at times. But there are far too many ideas fighting for attention, which leaves the best of them struggling to be realised. Huge potential that should have been further developed is sadly wasted by the film's attempt to be a Jack of all trades. There are a few redeeming features that prevent it from complete failure, but ultimately far too much has been crammed into far too little. It is indeed a shame, but what could have been a benchmark in horror history is unforgivably flawed.

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2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
dark, depressing, creepy, gory fun!, 3 April 1999

Author: BRIAN COOK (tem501@hotmail.com) from Rockford, IL

This is the darkest, gloomiest zombie flick I have ever seen. From beginning to end, just totally creepy. It's like a beautiful nightmare. The main character in the movie, Jane Doe, is played by Cheryl Lawson, and I think she does an excellent job of overdramatic, but not bad, acting. Especially when she freaks out or is being hypnotized by the doctor. Not a whole lot of gore, but a lot of really cool looking zombies out for brains. Basically, a hopelessly zoned out woman is stalked by an undead doctor at a mental institution. Very creeped out music. I love this movie so much, I gave it a 10(excellent). The box for the movie has a zombie on the cover with little light bulbs for his eyes. When you press a button, the eyes start blinking! Way over the top movie. The only other zombie movie better than this, that I have seen so far, is DEAD ALIVE. See this movie ASAP!

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Like a bag of Twizzlers, 23 June 2008

Author: lovecraft231 from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

20 years ago, Dr. Ramzi (Danny Gochnauer) was caught performing unethical experiments on patients by Dr. Gerald Swan (Jeremy Slate.) 20 years later, mental patient Jane Doe (Cheryl Lawson) is seeing visions. Long story short, Ramzi is back, and he has an army of zombies with him.

Brett ("Feeder", and several lesser movies like "Virtuosity" and "Man-Thing") Leonard's debut movie came to video in 1989 (complete with awesome video cover) and has since garnered something of a cult following-some think it's one of the worst zombie movies ever made, while others think it's a lost classic. The truth is: it's neither.

The movie does suffer through some problems. While Gochnauer and Slate do a good job, the rest of the cast ranges from campy to amusing to just plain bad. Lawson, while she tries her hardest (and looks good in a nipple hugging baby tee and panties), is pretty bad in particular, and doesn't make a strong lead. Also, while the movie tries to play it straight, when it tries to be funny, it falls flat, with two cringe worthy one liners that threaten to turn Ramzi into a 3rd rate Freddy knock off.

Still, there's plenty to enjoy. The biggest highlight is the eventual zombie carnage. While not the goriest, we get some highlights (brain removal, brain acupuncture, and more) that will put a smile to fans of the undead. Also, the zombies can only be killed with holy water-a unique method to say the least. Also, the score by Dan Wyman may be a bit dated, but it gets the job done.

Is "The Dead Pit" a lost classic? Hardly. Is it one of the worst zombie movies ever made? Far from it. The best way to describe it is that it's like a bag of Twizzlers candy-it's not bad, but you won't exactly remember it either.

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Entertaining zombie/gore opus, 4 June 2008
Author: slayrrr666 (slayrrr666@yahoo.com) from Los Angeles, Ca

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

"The Dead Pit" is a glorious example of 80s cheese.

**SPOILERS**

Found wandering the streets, Jane Doe, (Cheryl Lawson) is admitted to a mental health facility and clashes with Nurse Kygar, (Joan Bechtel) over her refuted case of amnesia. With help from Nurse Robbins, (Mara Everett) and psychiatrist Dr. Gerald Swan, (Jeremy Slate) they vow to help her although she still maintains her story about having her memory wiped out. As she continues her treatment, she begins to have crazy nightmares and dreams about Dr. Colin Ramzi, (Danny Gochnauer) who used to run the facility along with Dr. Swan years ago but had been banished from the site for practicing medical experiments to reanimate the dead. Forced to fight the man through her own means, she finds that he has plans for her to help him unless a horde of the undead across the dimensions into our world, and she must race to stop it before it takes over the sanitarium and beyond.

The Good News: This here is one of the very best 80s cheese-fests that was ever made. One of the main reasons for that is because there's so much bloodshed in the film. This is an incredibly bloody film, packed with loads of gore and messy features, and there's a ton of both in here that makes this one as bloody as it is. The kills make this one worth it, as there's literally no end to the ripped off limbs, a lobotomy pick through the eyes, scores of decapitations, brain surgeries where the top part of the head gets cut off to expose the brain matter within gets exposed, and there's also a ton of really great gunshots to the head. Even the dead on here are bloody, full of wounds, all slimy and blood-streaked, many of them bald in spotted and mildewed hospital gowns. They shuffle and stutter their way up the spiral staircase to wreak havoc. There's many great scenes of them coming along for the main characters, lit from behind in an awesome setting, which just makes them that much more impressive-looking, and that manages to give more of a fear to them which is always appreciated. The other really big part to this is the rather great story to this, as there's much more to this one than what's said. The fact that it throws in much more than normal, and all of them are nicely woven together into a rich story that has a lot of twists and turns to keep it going. There's some nice stuff here, from the nightmarish dreams to the therapy sessions and the few attack scenes that pop up, this one does manage to stay interesting for most of the time. When it hits the second half, there's as much goodness from the action as the first half, which includes the zombie massacre on the staff and patients that offers up some great moments, and there's also the big scenes in the basement of the facility where all the good parts happen. Then, there's the greatness of the finale, where the film goes to a larger scale than expected and employs the complete destruction of a water tower and the resulting flood it unleashes to deal with the matter for once and for all. It's great and manages to employ some nice action into the proceedings to make it come to an end. The last part that works well is the mental hospital setting, which is completely creepy, offers up some unnerving atmosphere and just gives the whole thing a really uneasy feeling. All of these here are what make the film worthwhile.

The Bad News: This one doesn't have a whole lot of flaws to it. The main one is that the plot here, while being really inventive, is rather hard to get into. There's a lot of things going on in here, from the amnesia victim to the past relationship that's remained hidden but is quite recognizable to those who don't have to think too hard about it and to the rather clichéd manner in which it all manages to occur at the end, and while all of these make the film feel smart, trying to piece together the way it all unfolds is just plain exhausting, and that's not a great feeling to have, especially when it's obvious that this wants to be a simple gore-shocker. Then there's that whole cliché of the spook that only the main character can see, including the "look-look away-look back" vanishing act that happens every time in these film. Worse is that the main villain gets to give a couple of the standard one-liners, not a lot of them, but what they lack in number they make up for in groaning ability. Otherwise, there isn't much wrong to this one.

The Final Verdict: One of the better 80s-era cheese-fests around, this one does a decent job with it, but beyond that not much. See it only if you're a big fan of the style or in the mood for a really nice zombie film from the time, otherwise there's not much else to recommend something like this to.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language and Nudity

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* out of 4, 14 December 2007
Author: Classics_And_Horror from Review Land

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

A renegade doctor is shot dead and entombed with his fiendish experiments in the basement of an abandoned wing of a mental hospital. Twenty years later, a mysterious woman is admitted with amnesia, and her arrival is marked by an earthquake - which cracks the seal to the Dead Pit, freeing the evil doctor to continue his work.

The best thing about this flick is the tape box. There is some atmosphere to it and it moves along decently, but that is not enough for me to even give this film half a star. Everything else about it is as bad as it gets from the story, to the over the top acting, to the effects. This dreadful movie isn't worth the time.

Rated R.

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1 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
The Dead Pitiable…, 25 December 2006

Author: Coventry from the Draconian Swamp of Unholy Souls

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

"The Dead Pit" offers a grim & chilling atmosphere, sublime settings and some of the most exhilarating gore effects I've ever seen, and yet... it's all ruined by truly amateurish production values and incompetent acting performances. What a crying shame, as Brett Leonard's ("Feed", "Hideaway") debut easily could have been one of the late 80's most grueling horror accomplishments, with its disturbingly gloom psychiatric clinic setting and the fairly unique 'zombifying' process that involves scalping people and sticking needles in their exposed brains. When you watch many independent low-budget horror flicks, you tend to get used to bad acting and lousy editing jobs, but it becomes a lot more difficult to overlook when the story actually has such great potential. Then you're just left behind with feelings of disappointment and anger. This film would have been a lot better if everyone – with the exception of Jeremy Slate – just kept their mouths shut and focused more on the blood-soaked zombies that come crawling out of the eerie pit in the asylum's secret basement. The living dead are experiment cases of the gifted Dr. Colin Ramzi, who went a little ballistic in his search for discovering the medical causes of insanity. His former partner Dr. Swan killed him and walled him up underneath the asylum but now, twenty years later, the arrival of a mysteriously amnesic girl and a heavy earthquake brought him back and he's more satanic than he ever was. The plot makes no sense and it's full of holes, but it's a really creepy film that features absolutely no comic reliefs or sympathetic characters. The good characters (like the innocent young nurse) are slaughtered just as relentlessly as the wicked ones, and you shouldn't root for a happy ending, either! The odd music contributes to the unsettling atmosphere as well and that abandoned dark hospital building is honestly one of the creepiest horror setting in history. One sequence in particular, when Dr. Ramzi is standing over the pit with his arms spread whilst an army of undead souls emerges, is vintage 80's terror in my humble opinion. But now let's rant a little about the negative elements. They show right away, with the ineptly edited opening credits! The whole history between Dr. Swan and Dr. Ramzi gets constantly intercut with credits, which looks very amateurish and overly interrupts the pace. The clumsy editing remains the main problem throughout the entire film, as relocations are always indicated by stagnant images of a full moon. That one same shot of the moon must feature in the film for a total of 15 times or something. Most of the acting performances are just hopeless, especially Stephen Foster as the heroic male lead and Danny Gochnauer as the malicious, flashy red-eyed zombie doctor. His character should have just been a silent one. Cheryl Lawson isn't the world's greatest actress neither, but at least she looks nice and walks around scarcely dressed most of the time. Those are very nice undies you're wearing, Cheryl... And a sexy top, too!

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1 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Eccch., 27 March 2002

Author: acidxian from Haddonfield, IL

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

My initial reaction to this film was to ignore it. Any video that must resort to a flashing gimmick on the box must be in danger of being ignored otherwise, so I chose to stay away. Then I stumbled across all of the positive remarks about the movie here on IMDb and became intrigued.

Well I hate to be a spoil sport, but this one grated on my nerves.

Cheryl Lawson, this movie's primary "chica-in-trouble", has one of the most annoying screams in movie history. Her voice reminded me of Lulu, the irritating daughter who screamed and squealed a lot in John Waters' "Polyester" (except in that case, she was trying to be annoying). Cheryl plays a young woman referred to as "Jane Doe" who gets tossed into the loony bin for nary a reason. It seems she's lost her memory, and naturally the proper thing to do is incarcerate her with a bunch of raving lunatics while the doctors use hypnotherapy to treat her. Well they're not all raving lunatics...there are one or two semi-coherent individuals, since the plot does require some other protagonists. The plot also requires Jane to traipse up and down the halls in her underwear a lot, standard practice in any insane asylum that turns up in a B movie.

Let's see, where were we? Well the hospital is in trouble because it has a secret door in the basement, beyond which is a sub-basement where a previous doctor has been conducting experiments involving needles inserted into the exposed brains of his unfortunate subjects (conveniently plucked from the halls of the asylum). When a colleague discovers the true nature of the doctor's work, he shoots the doctor in the head & seals off the secret basement. Jane Doe's arrival at the hospital 20 years later coincides with an earthquake that jolts the door loose, and soon the undead doctor (with flashing red eyes) is appearing and snatching more victims for his needle-work (the purpose of this is never quite clear, but Cheryl screams a lot).

All of this silliness leads up to an obligatory zombie attack, where the residents of the "dead pit" all come lurching out (while Cheryl screams and screams). They wreak havoc on the one or two people left alive in the facility until an elaborate plot is hatched by Cheryl and her male lead to douse the zombie pit with an entire water-tower full of holy water.

Eh, well...I guess I should tell you why I hated it, in spite of the gloriously ridiculous plot (always a plus in B-moviedom). The soundtrack of the film--dialogue, music, and sound effects alike--sounds as if it's been recorded inside of a tin can. The brief attempts at character development include a scene where the movie's main characters meet in the cafeteria of the asylum, their dialogue overwhelmed by the gratuitous screaming and moaning of the other patients. Most of the film takes place in darkness, and it's often hard to tell what's going on. One illogical scene occurs when three individuals are trapped in an office room with about thirty zombies pounding on the door, and one of the characters must make a long speech, hemming and hawing as if he was trying to remember what he ate for dinner yesterday.

But Oscar-winning performances are not what zombie movies are about. The main reason I hated "The Dead Pit", in spite of the excruciatingly awful sound quality, is that the movie has a serious conflict in style going on. It's filmed in darkness with lots of Gothic imagery (shadowy forms backlit by eerie light, the ominous interiors of the hospital, the rotting basement), yet the movie throws in screwball humor at the weirdest times. For instance, one zombie attack is preceded by two policemen casually discussing the local donut shops, and the whole holy-water-tower finale is quite laughable. The director also finds the place for a gratuitous breast shot as Jane Doe is hosed down with water, and why on Earth would Jane want to wander around a dark hospital corridor in her skimpy underwear?

These moments, and others, undermine any sense of dread the director is able to dredge up from the material. Overall I was really disappointed with "The Dead Pit". The idea could have made for a creepy film, or even a creepy spoof, but the result is a jumbled mess, and probably one of the worst movies you will ever hear. I should have left the box with the flashing eyes alone.

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