Thursday, April 22, 2010

C.H.U.D. (1984)

It's been a while since I've seen a flick as awesomely bad as C.H.U.D.  I actually vaguely remember seeing this movie on the shelf in the video store as a kid.  I can't believe I've never seen it until now.

C.H.U.D. stands for Cannabilistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers. (that's a mouthful)  Apparently some homeless people in NYC have morphed into monsters with glowing eyes that live underground and snatch unsuspecting people through manholes. 

George (John Heard) is our esteemed photographer who has been doing some sort of photojournalistc project about homeless people.  He also gives them food, money, etc. and bails them out of jail.  And for some reason, he's "annoyed" when he has to do high-fashion photoshoots with his nude model girlfriend.  Weird.

A.J. Shepard aka The Reverend (Daniel Stern) runs a soup kitchen downtown.  He's becoming concerned because many of his "undergrounders" have gone missing lately.  Little does he know they haven't gone missing as much as become mutants.   Captain Bosch (Christopher Curry) is thrown into the mix because he's investigating the disapperance of his wife (which is probs due to C.H.U.D.)

All three come together in their underground search for what is causing disappearances, deaths and injuries.  This movie is PURE 80s goodness.  We've got cheesy synthesizer music, terrible special effects, and corny acting.  All the things I love about B-movie horror.  This movie was definitely fun and although it won't really scare you, you'll definitely laugh a lot.  And if like me, you live in Manhattan, you can start randomly blaming things on C.H.U.D. to annoy others ;o)

photo source

2 comments:

SheReads said...

WOW, you took me back! THIS was one of my favorite 80's horror flicks! So much so that it inspired me to check out random subway tunnels in Brooklyn back in the day. (Not that you can really ever go down a tunnel, but I've peered down a few and have ridden trains in between cars (back when you could still get away with that shit) just to see what was in them tunnels, LOL! I guess curiosity can kill a cat, but no CHUD ever got me, so I guess it's safe to say the tunnels are clear...killer rats maybe...

The Scream Queen said...

@Robin: There are some awesome websites about people who (illegally) explore the subway tunnels in NYC. It's pretty cool stuff. There's all kinds of abandoned and secret stations and tunnels. Maybe someone will find a CHUD someday haha.