Review: The Pit (1981)

The thing about cult movies is sometimes you watch them and end up not being part of the cult.  I'd come across this movie in random forums or online lists of 'forgotten' films (and even The Angry Gay fave Final Girl) so I finally gave it a shot after seeing for cheap at Kino Lorber.

It was not my favorite.

I will say that lead actor Sammy Snyders does a good job in the role, and the trogs, while not very intimidating once they leave the Pit (spoiler?), at least have a somewhat original look to them.

But I am getting ahead of myself: first the plot.  Young Jamie Benjamin (Snyders) is an odd child.  Despite being 12ish years old, he still talks to his teddy bear (named Teddy, not very original is young Jamie) and doesn't socialize well with anyone his age.  However, he has discovered a pit in the woods filled with monsters he calls trogs.  He feeds them meat from the butcher, but finds himself unable to purchase more after a time.  What will he do? (He will feed them people, obviously).

So, first, this movie drags.  It opens with Jamie pushing someone into the pit, but then waits another 30+ minutes before it happens again.  Once Jamie does start murdering people, we get the exact same scene from the opening - in its entirety! - among the kills.  The kills are mostly done as a montage, and once they are done, we get some more 'plot' that doesn't do much to progress the story.

There are subplots in this film involving eventual victims, but they go nowhere and don't add anything to the movie so it feels unnecessary to get into them, other than to complain about them making this 101 minute movie feel even longer.

It may be that I'd be more invested if the acting was better, but it's pretty rough the entire runtime of the movie.  There's sometimes charm in that (see: Sleepaway Camp), but there still needs to be something interesting going on for it to work.  And none of it is interesting.

There aren't even that many shots that are visually stimulating either.  It's a very plainly shot with nothing inventive done throughout, and some shots actually take you out of the movie with the thought of 'What were they thinking?'

I am glad other people enjoy this and the world is better when people enjoy movies, I am just not a fan of this one.

3 out of 10