Dead Pit (DVD)
Steve Barton
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Reviewed by Uncle Creepy
Starring Cheryl Lawson, Jeremy Slate, Stephen Gregory Foster, Danny Gochnauer
Directed by Brett Leonard
Distributed by Navarre Corporation and Code Red
What is a guilty pleasure? Something you like even though you know it sucks? Something that would ruin the way people look at you if they found out you liked it? Something that you pretend to be interested in purely from an ironic standpoint but secretly dig the hell out of? Yeah, that about sums it up. For me, Dead Pit is more than a guilty pleasure. It’s a movie so bad that it’s hard not to enjoy it. It exists in a grey area where the normal rules of great and awful don’t apply. The best part? It’s finally on DVD! We should all rejoice! I think …
For the unacquainted, Dead Pit tells the story of Jane Doe (played by the uber-hot Cheryl Lawson). After being admitted to a mental hospital with amnesia, Doe ends up having a lot more than your average “Who the hell am I?” type problems to deal with — namely, an earthquake that ends up freeing the now undead body of a deviant doctor who was into raising a lot more than the high cost of medical bills. With the Earth newly cracked open and the help of his zombified experiments, our evil physician decides to continue his research. There’s your story (what little of it there is), setting the stage for some major flesh-tearing mayhem.
There are those of you out there who are going to give me shit for saying that this flick doesn’t suck. I agree with you. Dead Pit is an awful movie; yet, there’s something in it that just makes me enjoy it. Could it be Jane Doe’s ample hips? The doc’s glowing red eyes? The gore-soaked carnage? I don’t know, man. For every good thing I can name about this movie there are at least three bad things that immediately come to mind. Maybe it’s just childhood nostalgia kicking in. The VHS box for this film was so fucking cool (it had eyes that lit up when you pressed it) that I ended up cherishing this exercise in bad cinema a lot more than I should have. Either way, see it for yourself.
As usual, the good folks at Code Red have delivered another better-than-it-deserves DVD release. Not only will you find the original trailer (which was all I expected), but there’s nearly an hour of interviews with director Brett Leonard, writer/producer Gimel Everett, and stars Cheryl (I haven’t aged a bit) Lawson and Jeremy Slate. There’s also a truly lively and funny audio commentary with Leonard, Everett, and Slate. I don’t think I ever wanted to know this much about Dead Pit, but after listening to the cats involved, I must admit I have a bit more appreciation for the flick.
Am I recommending this? No. Am I slamming it? No. This movie is truly subjective to the viewer. For me anyway, even though Dead Pit should be considered D.O.A. by many standards, there’s still a lot of life left in this old weatherbeaten ice-cold corpse of an experience. Watch at your own risk, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Special Features
2 1/2 out of 5
Special Features:
3 out of 5
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