The Dead Pit (1989)

****SPOILERS****It was when the righteous and caring Dr. Gerald Swan, Jeremy Slate,did what was he thought was to be a good deed for all of humanity by blasting the crazed and diabolical Dr.Colin Ramzi, played by Danny Gochnauer in his first and last film or TV appearance,between the eyes when he tried to-like he did to all his victims -lobotomize him you would think we've heard and saw the last of the mad Dr. Ramzi & crew. That after Dr. Slate sealed him and his victims in the basement of the mental hospital that he worked in. But some 20 years later after a typical California earthquake the sealed door to the basement was ripped opened and the doctor and his Zombie victims were loose to inflict evil on the world at large.This all happened when pretty and confused Jean Doe, Cheryl Lawson, was caught wondering around town suffering from a serious case of amnesia and committed to the hospital that Dr. Slate ran to get her memory back. It soon turns out that Dr. Ramzi, with a bullet hole between his eyes,and his band of Zombies are now on the loose and out for blood as well as hearts livers and brains of the patients as well as staff of the hospital and nothing is going to stop them until they get their bellies full. This leads Jane Doe together with the cute and cuddly mental patient Bud Higgins, Michael Jacobs, to try to escape and warn the local authorities of what their facing in a full scale Zombie invasion of their community.****SPOILERS*** Far too extreme and disturbing for most movie goers to watch especially those with weak stomachs the "Death Pit" is short of story but loaded with gore and valiance that makes it successful in the long run with the blood & guts crowd. There's also the side story of the pretty Jean Doe,who gets to show us her boobies in a violent shower scene,connection to the hospital as well as the crazed Dr. Ramzi -who's considered the most brilliant person in the world of modern medicine by his former boss Dr. Slate-that will blow your as well as Jane Doe's mind. Just when Dr. Ramzi and his Zombies are about to take over the mental hospital as well as surrounding community fate lands a hand in stopping them cold with the only the one thing that could :A bottle as well as buckets-from the hospital water tower- of water blessed by an inmate in the hospital Sister Clair,Geha Getz,who knew what Dr. Ramzi was all about and what was necessary to stop him and his roving band of flesh eating and blood drinking Zonmbies.

...i wish the script writer was as intelligent! (the zombies have removed a key engine component required to start the car) i sooo want to love this movie. it has great atmosphere, LIGHTING, camera shots, etc.. the glowing red eyes on the doctor were fantastic, was that a high cost effect? cause they sure should have used them more! its such a shame because with a few extra tweaks to the screenplay, they could have made the gaping plot holes a bit more believable. i mean seriously. im a guy that loves supernatural, undead, etc. films, so i can obviously suspend belief pretty well, but why has the doctor come back? why is the protagonist the only one who can see the zombies throughout most of the film? i loved the lighting, the shots of the spiral staircase, the filming location was PERFECT and totally creepy, but with just A LITTLE more plot development and continuity this could have been a pretty fantastic movie. another thing: i know many horror fans are stoked on nudity/skin in horror flicks, granted its a staple in the genre to a degree, but FIRST of all, the protagonist isn't THAT attractive, and i find it kind of odd that she'd be walking around an asylum where she didn't feel she belonged in skimpy underwear and a see thru white crop top. i could go on and on about the ridiculous aspects of this film, but it really pains me, because there were so many camera shots, scenes, and elements that could have made this a pretty good zombie film. perhaps im being a bit hard on it, but with the obvious talent behind the camera, you'd think they could have created something far better.

"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!

Brett Leonard (Lawnmower Man, Hideaway) gives us in his directorial debut a pastiche of De Moro's HELLHOLE and Fulci's CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD, and it holds it's own with those two heavy-weights from opposite poles of the extreme-film spectrum. This movie has raving mental patients, psychotic doctors, people being buried alive, ritual murders in boiler rooms, flesh-hungry zombies, high-quality gore effects, and hot women. Very atmospheric for taking place in a clichéd setting = a mental asylum. Probably the creepiest one caught on film. There are dead bodies all over this movie. Amazing dialog like this doesn't hurt either: -"My God! You're a Doctor! You're supposed to be saving lives!" -"I've done life. Now I'm doing death." Not a disappointment for zombie fans looking for something different, or slasher fans doing the same. Solid. A must see.