Review of The Pit (1981) by Bill B — 07 Jan 2017
Canucksplotation from the golden age of the Canadian Film Tax Credit. The Pit was filmed in small-town Ontario posing as "anywhere USA." Sammy Snyders plays Jamie, a socially awkward 12-year old who has trouble fitting in, talks to a sinister teddy bear, is a peeping tom and a bit of a pervert, and known of the location of a pit containing four squat hairy evolutionary throwback troglodytes out in the woods.
Snyders is pretty good, we must be sympathetic with Jamie but also realize that he is a bit of a creep. Its a fine line and he generally does a good job. Jean Elias as Sandy plays the only sympathetic adult, a psych major who realizes that Jamie is pretty screwed-up.
She is his live-in babysitter while his parents are away in Seattle. The other major characters, other than the creepy teddy bear named Teddy, are the troglodytes in the pit. With yellow eyes and a lot of hair, these creations are best observed in the the dark or from a distance.
Jamie feeds them raw meat from the butcher store but when he runs out of money and cannot risk stealing anymore from Sandy, Teddy suggests feeding the troglodytes all the people in the town who have been nasty to Jamie.
There are a lot of common 1980s Horror tropes at work here including useless authority figures (Jamie's parents, teachers, and eventually the police chief of this small town) as well as what critic John Kenneth Muir refers to as the "breast part of the movie.
" Look for Sonja Smits, soon to be in Videodrome (1983) and later on CBC TV's Street Legal series.
This review of The Pit (1981) was written by Bill B on 07 Jan 2017.
The Pit has generally received mixed reviews.
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