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     Over the course of DVD there have been a few films that fans have been very vocal about since they had yet to be released on the format.  One of the movies that I remember hearing the grumbling the most about was this film “The Dead Pit”.  One of the major reasons this movie remains in the memories of horror fans everywhere has to do with the release of the old VHS of the film years back.  See the VHS packaging included light up eyes for the zombie on the front cover making it incredibly memorable.  But when things like this happen it’s basically a recipe for disaster.  See, people remember the great cover and tend to forget if the movie is horrible or not.  Luckily for us, that’s simply not the case here as “The Dead Pit” is a quite memorable piece of 80s cheese. 

     In “The Dead Pit” we start out with a doctor performing experiments in an abandoned area in a mental hospital.  A doctor in the hospital soon realizes what is going on and attempts to stop him by shooting him and entombing him with his subjects.  Twenty years later a patient is admitted to the facility with amnesia and soon thereafter an earthquake takes place.  This opens the tomb where the doctor was supposed to spend the rest of eternity, awakening him and his subjects.  Before you know it all hell has literally broken loose and zombies are everywhere.  Does the young woman have more to do with all this than it seems?  Regardless it’s up to her to stop what’s going on with the help of another mental patient at the hospital.

     Before this DVD release I had not seen the film before and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect going into it.  I knew it was a cheesy 80s zombie flick, but I was surprised to find out it was more than simply that.  See the movie is pure cheese but actually takes an interesting angle on the zombie film.  Simply the zombies themselves are not just your average everyday flesh eaters.  These zombies have glowing eyes and surprisingly on this low of budget look pretty damn good.  Not just the eyes either, but the makeup done on them was very good in my opinion. 

     The acting in the film is quite suspect, but honestly I was expecting that to be pretty weak going into it and I was right.  It’s not terrible the entire movie but there are scenes that suffer greatly because of this.  I thought it wasn’t going to matter at all considering I found this to be quite funny and somewhat entertaining but that dies off a bit in the middle of the movie. 

     Another interesting point about this film is the time period it was made in.  Most horror fans know that zombies were still big business in the 80s and so were the “Nightmare on Elm Street” films.  This movie combined them both for me as there are clearly zombies in the film and I had a sort of “Elm Street” vibe to it with a lot of dream sequences and visions by our lead character Jane Doe (played in the film by Cheryl Lawson, frequently in her underwear by the way). 

     The story itself is pretty strong but the script itself is weak in parts.  The middle of the film suffers the most through this as it seems like they are simply going through the motions to get to the final act of the movie.  Even with this as the case, there is enough going on in the first and last act to make me think this is a solid flick though.  The middle may drag but it’s nothing that totally destroys what they were trying to build, it just makes it a little dull and could have been done better.

      The most impressive thing in my opinion here is director Brett Leonard.  The DVD packaging read’s “From the director of The Lawnmower Man and Virtuosity” which won’t really make anyone go nuts, but Leonard is rather underrated in my opinion due to this film.  He has a shoestring budget here and really gets the most out of his money.  The setting of the mental hospital certainly adds an atmosphere that makes the film memorable, the effects are extremely impressive and so are the zombies   Bottom line is that he certainly can work within the restraints of a low budget and this is living proof.

     The Code Red DVD is one that is packed with features that I’m sure fans are going to dig.  It has complete commentary from director Brett Leonard, writer Gimet Everett and actor Jeremy Slate (who has since passed on since doing this).  Also there are on camera interviews with stars Cheryl Lawson, Jeremy Slate, director Brett Leonard and writer/producer Gimel Everett.  You also get the original theatrical trailer for the film as well as a Code Red vault of trailers on there as well.  This one certainly comes RECOMMENDED from me as I think it’s a unique look at the zombie film and quite the cool little 80s cheesefest

Rating - ***

-Ed Demko