The Dead Pit (1989)

User Rating:

5.4/10   

Director:

Brett Leonard

Writers:

Gimel Everett (writer)
Brett Leonard (writer)

Genre:

Horror

Tagline:

Drop In Anytime.

Plot:

A renegade doctor is shot dead and entombed with his fiendish experiments in the basement of an abandoned wing of a mental hospital...

Plot Keywords:

Doctor | Evil Doctor | Nightmare | Undead | Psychiatric Hospital

Cast

Jeremy Slate	...	Dr. Gerald Swan
Cheryl Lawson	...	Jane Doe
Stephen Gregory Foster	...	Christian Meyers
Danny Gochnauer	...	Dr. Colin Ramzi
Geha Getz	...	Sister Clair
Joan Bechtel	...	Nurse Kygar
Mara Everett	...	Nurse Robbins
Jack A. Sunseri	...	Head Orderly Jimmy (as Jack Sunseri)
Frederick Dodge	...	Patient
Nettie Heffner	...	Night Nurse
Luana Speelman	...	Day Nurse
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Walker Craig	...	Patient
Sheila De'Maris	...	Patient #1
Skyy Diaz	...	Orderly #2
Rory Edelman	...	Little Sara
Randall Fontana	...	Jimmy
Randy Fontana	...	Jimmy
Damon Foster	...	Zombie
Michael Jacobs	...	Bud Higgins
Guy Messenger	...	Patient
Rebekah Score	...	Patient (as Rebecca Craig)
Jason Slate	...	Male Orderly

Also Known As:

Dead Pit (USA) (DVD box title)

Runtime:

95 min | 102 min (uncut version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Finland:K-18 | Australia:R | UK:15 | Germany:BPjM Restricted

Filming Locations:

Milpitas, California, USA

Trivia:

Filmed in the high security wing of Agnew State Hospital, Milpitas CA. The wing was closed down for many years, had no power, and used to house the most violent and dangerous patients. Since most of the movie was filmed at night, the empty wing really added a very creepy feel to the process.

Goofs:

Boom mic visible: Boom mic visible on left side of frame in wide screen version during earthquake sequence when camera tilts down from ceiling into hallway.

Quotes:

Jane Doe: The people in the cellar need help! Let them out!

Nonsensical and contrived, but reasonable fun.

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!).