C.H.U.D.

Production: Andrew Bonime (Producer) — Larry Abrams (Executive Producer)

Screenplay: Parnell Hall (Screenplay) — Shepard Abbott (Story)

Music: David A. Hughes (Original Music Composer)

Cinematography: Peter Stein (Director of Photography)

A series of mysterious disappearances throws the inhabitants of a city into panic. The police officer in charge of the investigations, with the help of a photographer and a man who runs a soup kitchen for the poor, understands that in the city's sewers hide some beings, the result of a genetic mutation, who attack and devour all those who cross their path. Classic mediocre fantasy-horror, one of the many rental films that are not memorable either from a negative or positive point of view. Despite having no censorship vetoes (it is labeled as "film for all"), it gives us some semi-splatter sequences (severed heads, mutilated bodies); also notable is the brief appearance, at the end of the film, of a not yet famous John Goodman.

Monsters in the sewers of the dubious side of Manhattan

This is a comic booky 80’s creature feature, but it’s not campy. It’s similar to “Alligator” from four years earlier, just with a more compelling story and lacking the occasional laughs. As far as the “compelling story” goes, I wasn’t expecting to be so drawn into it, but I was due to quality writing and fleshed-out characters with a quality cast, particularly the protagonists played by John Heard, Daniel Stern and Christopher Curry. John Goodman even shows up four years before he became famous with Roseanne.

Blonde Kim Greist is serviceable on the feminine front, but the movie would’ve been better with someone more notable like redhead Robin Riker in “Alligator.” She’s a’right though.

It runs 1h 28m, but there’s an "Integral Cut" originally released for home video that runs 8m longer, which is the cut I saw. It was shot Jun 1984 in Manhattan with the soup kitchen sequence done across the Hudson River in Jersey City (southwest of Manhattan).

GRADE: B

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