THE DEAD PIT is a movie that seems to divide people on whether they like it or not. Straight zombie fans say it's too slasher-esque in the middle. Straight slasher fans dislike the zombie angle. I happen to be both, so I quite enjoyed it.Dr. Colin Ramzi is a psychotic scientist who experiments on the patients at the mental institution he works for. His associate, Dr. Swan, has had enough, so he confronts him in his basement laboratory, shoots him in the head, and throws him in the pit where he stored the dead bodies. Twenty years later, a woman who calls herself Jane Doe enters the institution because the doctors say she has amnesia, yet she knows her memory was taken from her. She manages to befriend one patient by the name of Chris, who's in there for his habit of building bombs (Golly, I'll bet that won't come in handy later in the film!). Well, after a large earthquake, Dr. Ramzi and all the corpses in the dead pit awaken and wreak havoc on the hospital. Can Jane and Chris save the day? I liked THE DEAD PIT. The movie had a lot of good things going for it, even though it doesn't fully utilize some of its potential, but as it stands, it's a fun ride. All the actors were pretty good, with the exception of Cheryl Lawson as Jane. She's fine during scenes where she just has to talk, but in her "emotional" scenes, like crying and such, she was horrible. She was a good screamer, though, and she was easy on the eyes, but she began to really get on my nerves after a while.THE DEAD PIT is a very well-made movie as well. Director Brett Leonard obviously knew what he was doing, and it's no surprise he went on to do bigger things like direct the sci-fi film THE LAWNMOWER MAN. Leonard uses lots of fog and colored lights to build atmosphere, and he does so surprisingly well.The gore is also top-notch, especially during a period where the MPAA basically neutered a lot of these gore films. There's a lot of gory brain-munching, head-drilling, and decapitations, courtesy of Dr. ramzi and co.While the last forty or so minutes are pure zombie-filled bliss, the previous hour was one half characterization and one half stalk 'n' slash with some pretty good and nasty kills. This seems to annoy people expecting a straight-forward zombie movie, but I liked it.Of course, the film does have its flaws. There are some obvious miniatures, especially near the end, but personally, the added to the fun for me. There are some slow parts, but that doesn't take too much out of it. There's also a REALLY obvious "twist" that I guessed in the first fifteen minutes.Overall, THE DEAD PIT is a really fun movie that plays it straight, yet with a sense of fun all throughout. It's gory, occasionally funny (for both intended and unintended reasons), and some the characters are likable. Dr. Ramzi is a great villain, and the zombie effects are great as well.Check it out.

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 :)

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

I certainly consider myself a fan of eighties horror, zombie flicks and low budget films; and so I figured that put me in good stead to see The Dead Pit; a low budget eighties zombie film - but alas, due to a complete lack of originality and overall poor execution, this film is more boring than your average cult schlock flick. As if the overlong and turgid running time isn't enough to put you off; the fact that the film is completely humourless in the face of it's low budget heritage, and the way that it takes an eternity for a very, very simple plot idea to finally deliver anything at all that even may be worth remembering, might. The film presents a very dismal and morbid atmosphere from the beginning, and the mental hospital in which the film takes place in is well used; but the big positive elements end there. The plot takes influence from better films; chiefly, Stuart Gordon's masterpiece 'Re-Animator' and sees a doctor discover that a surgeon at his place of work is conducting experiments on the dead. 20 years after shooting him and walling him up in the basement, an amnesia patient finds herself in the hospital and claims that her memory has been surgically removed...Places like mental hospitals and prisons often don't make very god locations for low budget horror films, in spite of the benefits gained from atmosphere, simply because it gives the often talentless writers an excuse to pack their film with over the top and silly characters, rather than writing so that everything fits. In fairness, this film stays away from that well - but unfortunately the time saved on staying away from too many silly characters is mostly spent on the drab central character. Cheryl Lawson is no good in the lead role because her acting is awful, and she's not good looking enough to provide eye candy for the audience. The only decent cast members are the undead; which look fairly decent (certainly a lot better than a lot of other low budget crap), but aren't well used as the mindless creatures find themselves with a few too many brains to convince the audience that they actually have been dead. Director Brett Leonard can be given plaudits for sticking quite a few fairly nasty gore scenes in his film, which see things like eyeball violence and impromptu organ removal; but not much else. Given the plot, the location shoots and the gore - this could have been a winner, but it isn't.