The Dead Pit is an interesting flick. It never pretends to be classy or sophisticated and it's not a gorefest thrill ride. So what is it? A relatively obscure and mediocre horror film from the late 1980's, a time when the genre of horror was sputtering, looking for any kind of idea to kickstart the scene that was now home to icons such as Leatherface, Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhies. Of course, that whole "looking for an idea" thing led to quite a lot of terrible movies. The Dead Pit is sorta/kinda/maybe one of them but it's towards the top of the heap. You gotta give it up to Code Red DVD for releasing The Dead Pit for the first time on DVD.
The film opens inside of a mental hospital. We see a crazy guy dressed as a doctor (or a crazy doctor dressed as a... doctor). Then we see a second doctor who appears to be nervous, so this must be our "Good Guy Doctor." He goes to the basement and discovers a huge pit of dead people.... Wait a minute, I get it!! THE DEAD PIT! Anyway the two doctors argue over whether it's cooler to be a bastard or a wuss. The wuss wins because he has a gun and likes to use it by putting bullets into people's foreheads. The bad doctor dies and we see the good doctor sealing up the "room of doom." Yes, I just made that up.
Fast forward and we see that the good doctor, now identified as Dr. Swan, is head of the mental institution. A woman named 'Jane Doe' has just arrived with no recollection of her past or how she got there. While inside the hospital, Jane meets Christian, a veteran with a penchant for blowing stuff up. During her stay, Jane is haunted by terrible nightmares and the "now-you-see-him, now-you-don't" appearances of that evil doctor from the beginning of the film. How is Jane connected to this doctor? Is Christian REALLY crazy? Will the dead bodies in the DEAD PIT ever wake up and wreak havoc towards the end of the movie? Well, yeah.
This was directed by Brett Leonard and I have to give him props on using the scenery to create a mood. This is a very dark, eerie hospital that is juxtaposed well with the acting and the few (but decent) gore/FX work scenes. The basis for this story is that Jane Doe is searching for her connection to Dr. Ramzi, the evil zombie doctor. When the truth is revealed, it feels a little lackluster. That's ok though because the residents of the dead pit come alive and it's all kinds of zombie fun. The acting is above decent but not "OMG~!" worthy. I think every one involved truly did a good job with an interesting storyline and it's good to see this kind of thing available to the masses now. I'm giving this 3 BANGS FOR YOUR BUCKS for a couple of reasons. One, it's a decent way to pass the time. Two, Code Red DVD deserves a hard high five for bringing out all these movies that no one else would. Three, zombies are cool and so are evil doctors.
If you're going to buy this flick, I suggest you head over to your nearest Best Buy. They have a limited run of 2-Disc Special Editions while all other retailers merely carry the 1-Disc version.
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