In this episode of Pop Culture Beast’s Halloween Horror Picks, filmmaker Vincente DiSanti joins me to talk about a late 80s zombie/slasher mashup – The Dead Pit (1989)!
Shot on 35mm for almost no money by first time director Brett Leonard (from a script by Leonard and Gimel Everett), The Dead Pit stars Jeremy Slate, Cheryl Lawson, Stephen Gregory Foster, Mara Everett, Joan Bechtel and Danny Gochnauer.
The Dead Pit features some impressive make up and effects work, especially considering the budget. Michael Hinton created the film’s optical effects, while the prosthetic special effects were created by FX artist Ed Martinez.
The arrival of a beautiful amnesiac (Lawson) at a crumbling California asylum seems to unleash a supernatural slasher (Gochnauer) who murders his victims with a transorbital lobotomy tool! Soon the asylum is overrun with brain-munching zombies, in this stylish, nearly incoherent horror cult classic.
The Dead Pit is a problematic and messy horror movie that benefits from an original concept, some impressive gore, and a number of truly outrageous sequences. If you like zombie movies, and can get past the questionable plot logic and simply enjoy the insane visuals, you’ll probably have a fun time with this one. It’s nothing if not entertaining!
The Dead Pit is a gruesome, low budget genre-mashup that I rate 6/10!
Look for new episodes of Pop Culture Beast’s Halloween Horror Picks every Monday, Wednesday and Friday in October! You can watch past episodes HERE.
Ryan Stockstad is a Los Angeles filmmaker with a passion for horror, documentary and experimental cinema. He has written articles for HC Magazine, Mostly Harmless Magazine and various blogs and websites. He has lectured on topics as diverse as low budget filmmaking, short story structure, and the influence of the Spanish Civil War on surrealist cinema. He hosts new episodes of Pop Culture Beast's Halloween Horror Picks every Monday, Wednesday and Friday in October.