C.H.U.D(1984)

"Ugly, Slobbering, Ferocious, Carnivores"


PLOT
"When bizarre murders and disappearances in New York City start happening and all point to a group of grotesquely deformed vagrants living in the sewers. a Photographer, his girlfriend, A Police Captain and a bum who seem to know more about the creatures, band together to try and determine what the creatures are and what is really going on"


MY THOUGHTS
I've always heard about C.H.U.D but never got around  to watching it. until I finally sat down and watched it and was very surprised in a good way at what I saw. It doesn't play like typical horror movies, its very smart, and character driven and even has a social commentary too it.

It begins with a woman being attacked and taken underground by something, but you never get to see what exactly it is, but whatever it is is weird and has big claws for hands, we meet George Cooper(John Heard) who is a photographer and his girlfriend Lauren(Kim Griest) who is a model, they live in a small apartment but its a nice enough place for them.

During a photo shoot for Lauren that George completely forgot about he loses his cool over the whole thing, but after a little talk from Lauren he takes a break and checks his messages where he gets a call from Mrs. Monroe a bag lady that was arrested for trying to take a gun from a cop, he goes down to the police station where she is being interrogated by Captain Bosch(Christopher Curry) who has been under alot of pressure with all of the missing persons reports that have been coming in over the past couple of weeks.

George shows up and bails out Mrs. Monroe, who he got to know really well after he did a story about the homeless some months back, she takes him with her underground and shows him why she was trying to take the gun, her brother Victor and another guy name Hugo who have been trying to get any weapon they can because something attacked Victor and hurt him pretty bad.

Captain Bosch uneasy about all of the missing persons reports decides to go see AJ "The Reverend" Shepherd (Daniel Stern) who Bosch had arrested a few times before, Bosch goes to A.J.'s soup kitchen where he finds out from A.J. that a number of his "regulars" who live underground have gone missing and only one of them that was one of his regulars named Val lived underground won't go back underground because of what he knows even though he is utterly crazy.

C.H.U.D plays out more like a suspense thriller then a horror movie, because of how there two groups of characters that are both trying to uncover what's really going and they slowly come together as everything comes to a head in the finale.

I really enjoyed C.H.U.D. because I went into it expected with the social themes of how government love to cover up things from the public and will do anything to save themselves from looking bad at any cost, all of the characters are believable and don't really do anything that is cliche like in most horror movies, Daniel Stern as A.J. was probably my favorite character because it was a different role from what he is probably best known for even though C.H.U.D is one of his few horror genre turns and if he did more movies like this he'd been even more well known then what he is. and the scenes he has with Christopher Curry are some of the best scenes in the movie, those two really played off each other well.

John Heard does a good job here as what is looked at as the lead character my only probably with his role is that he seems to only get involved in the main plot of the movie only by chance not like Stern's and Curry's characters who are heavily involved in finding out what's going on from the word go, and the subplot with Kim Griest about her being pregnant was kinda pointless but I understand why it was placed in there.

I wouldn've liked to have seen a bite more of the creatures then what we do get to see but the less is more approach was still very effective because it leaves you with wanting more of seeing them more but what we do get to see of the creatures is still good.

A few things I noticed about this movie was that the music really set the tone of the movie and added alot too the creepiness of it, one thing that helps make a good horror movie is that soundtrack and this movie really has the goods here.

There are a few small role appearances from well known TV/Film actors here with Patrica  Richardson who is best known for Home Improvement, John Goodman as a cop, Frankie Fasion best known for The Wire and Barney from Silence of The Lambs also 3 of the main leads would go on to be in the Home Alone movies too.

All in All C.H.U.D. is a cult classic horror movie that deserves its title and probably should be better known then it is, true horror fans know and love it and in my opinion none horror fans would and could enjoy it to because of its none horror/ social commentary themes that play out in the movie. hopefully nobody will get the bright idea of trying to remake this movie because I'm sure they would ruin what makes this movie great.
I highly recommend it to any new horror fans, old horror fans who never seen it before like myself, and even too certain none horror fans that are open minded enough to sit back and enjoy this movie.


CAST
John Heard- George Cooper
Daniel Stern- A.J. "The Reverend" Shepherd
Christopher Curry- Captain Bosch
Kim Griest- Lauren Daniels
Eddie Jones- Chief O'Brien
George Martin- Wilson
Graham Breckel- Val
Frankie Fasion- Sgt. Parker
John Goodman- Cop In Diner




MY RATING 8/10