The Pit (1981)

the leading man is my tpye

People are voting emotionally.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

I really enjoy this quaint charming little oddity of a horror picture, it might be kinda corny and downright dumb in places, but it's also genuinely edgy and even a little daring at points too, and it has a great creepy child performance in young Sammy Snyders, who is very effective in his role and holds pretty much everything together himself as a disturbed and lonely young boy who discovers a way to rid himself of his enemies after finding a pit deep in the woods that's full of mysterious yellow eyed monstrous primeval beasts that are very hungry! The last time I watched this I really couldn't stop thinking about how much more effective a viewing experience it would have been if the plot had been retooled just a little so that it turned out that Jamie had been murdering people all along and dumping the bodies into the pit, and the "Trol-lol-logs" had just been figments of his warped imagination and a way of justifying himself. That was what the movie was screaming out to happen in my book, it would have clearly been so much deeper, darker and meaningful that way. If they'd have had the balls to go with the more psychological route I'm certain the movie would have gone down as more of a classic, not to say that it isn't a classic to those who love it, I like it a lot, I find it to be a lot if strange old school fun, but if it fails, it fails the hardest because of the horribly mishandled tone and plot structure. It feels like a movie of two halves, you have the dead serious stuff like the intensity of Snyders and his crazy eyes and his voyeuristic tendencies and obsession with *adult* naked women, and then you've got the goofy whimsical music playing while an old lady comically gets dumped down the pit, and then it really changes things up when the monsters briefly get free to go on a little rampage and feast on sunbathers! Anyway it's not exactly ideal but it is worth watching for Sammy Snyders. You do feel for his character at first when you see how the horrible neighbourhood kids treat him like dirt and the ignorant adults who should know better judge and dismiss him as "no good", but then as his more deviant behaviours come to the fore and he's essentially a murderer it makes it pretty hard to care too much when he eventually meets his own demise via a little classic grim poetic justice at the hands of another disturbed child... Kooky, creepy, and a little bit deranged, this cool little gem is well worth checking out if you've never seen it, it's a fun flick, never quite seen anything like it. X

Now here's something worth seeking out for those genre fans with tastes tending towards the twisted, offbeat, and humorous. It's got enough laugh out loud moments to make it consistently entertaining, memorable creatures, and an amusing mean spirited tone coupled with a fairly decent body count.Young Sammy Snyders is effectively off putting as Jamie Benjamin, a creepy 12 year old boy who partakes in a variety of interesting extracurricular activities. Stuck with college aged babysitter Sandy O'Reilly (Jeannie Elias) while his parents go on vacation, he begins lusting after her, while consulting with his teddy bear confidante. He's also discovered a hole in the nearby woods in which a few troglodyte monsters - which he calls "tra la logs" - reside. He soon finds out that they eat only meat, and he's quite willing to provide it for them, taking care of his nemeses in the process.Little Sammy is quite the pervert, as we can see when he cons frosty librarian Marg Livingstone (Laura Hollingsworth) into stripping in front of her window. He similarly has no problem with ogling Sandy at every opportunity. Among his exploits, he takes crotchety blind senior Miss Oliphant (Lillian Graham) for an action packed wheelchair ride and cuts suggestive photographs out of books. This is one kid who likes to keep busy.Canadian produced but filmed on location in Wisconsin (!), this never ceases to entertain the viewer with its utter insanity. Lew Lehman directs, from a screenplay by Ian A. Stuart. A chief asset is a hilarious, old fashioned type of music score composed by Victor Davies. Elias is appealing as the babysitter and there's also a part for Canuck actress Sonja Smits ("Videodrome"), making her film debut.If you decide to check it out, you'll find that the priceless resolution is well worth waiting for. Overall, this is one obscurity that creates a pretty big impression.Seven out of 10.

Out as a double bill on Anchor Bay's drive-in OOP DVD together with Hellgate (1990). It's one that won't stick on your mind. The opening sequence is suddenly edited with the opening credits and in fact it were shots that you would see further into the flick.A youngster Jamie Benjamin (played by Sammy Snyders) has a weird obsession with his babysitter and sex. He is just 12 years old and lives a bit on his own while peeping tom on his babysitter in bed and in the shower. he even get it so far to let older women get undressed for him. he does it all with the help of his teddy bear. But being a bit of a weird fella he's naturally being harassed by people. walking in the forest he sees a pit with monsters, Revenge is on his way.Before we have the revenge you get a rather boring flick were no gore is attached until the final of the flick were the monsters are revealed and people are out to kill them. Sammy Snyders never made it into the scene and stopped in 1982. His babysitter Jeannie Elias went further and is still going on as a actress and as a voice in so many cartoons and animation flicks.When people are falling into the pit you never see them being attacked by the monsters. There's maybe only a few seconds of red stuff in it, weird being made in an era full of explicit gore. Due the peeping by a youngster it is a bit campy. Jeannie Elias (the babysitter), Laura Hollingsworth (Marg)(her only flick), and Jennifer Lehman (Caren)(now a business manager in the scene) do show there juggs briefly.Maybe one to see with your kids, they maybe will be frightened. And the end, well, so predicable...Gore 1/5 Nudity 1/5 Effects 1/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

I can honestly say that THE PIT is unlike any film I've ever seen. There are several different themes running concurrently in this one-all wrapped up in a strange, low-budget, horror film.Jamie is quite obviously a severely emotionally disturbed loner of a pre-teen weirdo. He has no friends, save for 'Teddy'-his teddy-bear (that talks back to him...), and some troll-like creatures that live in a pit in the woods. He's also a bit of a pervert and has an unhealthy obsession with his latest live-in babysitter. When Jamie runs out of money and can't afford to provide his troll-buddies with meat from the local grocer-he turns to the locals that have wronged him as a new source of food for the pit- dwellers... THE PIT is one of those seriously 'what the f!ck' type films that really makes you wonder what types of psychedelic drugs the writers were on to come up with such a story. There's no shortage of bizarrity going on in this one. The talking teddy-bear, some alluded to incest themes ('do you know why my mother washes me so much? Is she really trying to make me clean? Do you like washing me???'), Jamie's overall creepy nature, pit trolls-the list goes on. The kid that plays Jamie is surprisingly good in his role as the freakish outcast-and his ability to switch from vulnerable and almost sympathy-inducing, to deranged and homicidal on-the-fly is pretty noteworthy. My only real problem with THE PIT is there are parts toward the middle and end that are (I hope intentionally) 'funny' and sorta kills the mood at times-and the parts toward the end where the trolls get out feels a little disjointed compared to the rest of the film (though the very last scene is priceless and suitably twisted). There's very little gore to speak of, and just a few quick titty shots-so don't expect anything in terms of graphic sex or violence. In the case of this film though-I was entertained enough that I didn't really notice it-and for once-I'll go so far as to say that the film didn't suffer from the lack of graphicness. Definitely an odd-ball of a film-and since I tend to dig the 'evil kids' sub-genre, I was pleasantly surprised by this one. Not a 'great' film so-to- speak...but definitely original and entertaining. 8.5/10