Review: C.H.U.D

YOU WON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT IT MEANS!


Director: Douglas Cheek
Writers: Shepard Abbott, Parnell Hall
Cast: John Heard, Daniel Stern, Christopher Curry, Kim Greist, Laure Mattos
Certificate: 18
Running Time: 88 mins
Released: 31/08/84

Plot: Following a string of disappearances in New York City, a persist ant policeman fights against the city authorities to unravel a terrifying mystery involving radioactive waste, murder and mutation.

Review: IT SEEMS that along with 'swapping identities' (Freaky Friday, Big, Filofax, that one with Lenny Henry) one of the the most common themes for an 80's film was 'something going wrong due to toxic waste'. While this has provided some entertaining big-budget hits such as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, this is especially true of super-low budget efforts, with the Troma studio being a clear pack leader offering up The Toxic Avenger and The Class of Nuke'em High.

C.H.U.D sets it's stall out pretty early. The first scene in fact. A lone woman walks down a generic grimy street at night. It is cold and wet, but all seems normal. Unfortunately for her, she stops over a man-hole cover and when it opens she meets not a friendly turtle, but the deformed claws of a ravenous CHUD. And he's not after pizza, either.

Her dissapearance is not uncommon. Many people been dissapearing off the streets but no one seems to care as they're mostly homeless people, which could be a hint of social commentary but probably isn't.

After that we don't get treated to a whole lot of CHUD (Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller) action for some time. What we do get is a lot of character development with some pretty good actors. Cooper, played by John Heard (below, left; later of Home Alone and Big fame) and Shepard, played by Daniel Stern (below, right; later of City Slickers and also Home Alone fame) go about their own separate investigations into the CHUD business. Cooper is a photographer with a pregnant girlfriend Lauren (Kim Griest) and Shepard is played as a very convincing soup kitchen worker concerned over the disappearance of 'undergrounders', homeless folks who live, er, underground.

Stern leads Capt. Bosch (Christopher Curry) into the sub-terranean labyrinth beneath New York looking for missing undergrounders. Bosch is particularly interested in finding out what the hell has happened as the woman who went missing at the start of the film is his wife. They don't find many undergrounders, or CHUDs, but they do find lots of Geiger counters, left from a team of scientists (who are also missing). When they turn on the Geiger counters the dials light up like a Christmas tree. They don't give any actual readings but they do go off the scale, meaning only one thing - CHUDs!

With this evidence of radioactive activity Bosch and Shepard go to see the city council who tell them (off the record, of course) that yes, some radioactive waste may have gone astray somewhere under the city.

More attacks follow and we get to see the CHUDs in a bit more detail. They are horrible looking creatures with bright eyes and sharp claws, a cross between H.G. Well's Morlocks from The Time Machine and Jeff Goldblum halfway through becoming The Fly. They kill an old man and terrify a young girl. Capt. Bosch's wife turns up in the river. Or part of her does, at least.

C.H.U.D is full of charming B-movie cliches and implausibilities such as when a woman goes over to investigate a pile of cardboard boxes for absolutely no reason and is, of course, attacked by a CHUD. Such ridiculous writing is really quite endearing and drowns out any realistic critical voice as you just sit back and enjoy the action unfold.

It is in the final gripping act that C.H.U.D really cranks up the tension and drama. Lauren goes for a shower and is trapped in her apartment by a group of CHUDs who are out and about above ground level. A sequence where a CHUD bursts through her bathroom wall and she decapitates him is probably the film's best moment.

The dizzying end of the film is truly a roller coaster experience. Some diners in a cafe (including a young and reasonably slim John Goodman) get massacred and the city authorities move into action. All man-hole covers are covered by vehicles to try and halt the progress of the CHUDs. Unfortunately for Cooper and Shepard, they are now trapped underground with the CHUDs. However, they miraculously find a TV camera (also left by the scientists) that works perfectly and broadcast their plight. They are helped by Bosch, who is then shot by an evil council member who doesn't want to truth of the CHUDs to get out. The council member then tries to run the serviving cast members over in a van but is shot by Shepard. The van's tyre drops into a man-hole and the van bizarrely blows up.

At the end Cooper, Bosch and Shepard are joined by Lauren (who has escaped) and all is well.

C.H.U.D feels a little short at 88 minutes and many questions are left unanswered. Who are the CHUDs? How many of them are there? Can they talk? Do they feel emotions? Will they emerge again? And who has been running the soup kitchen in Shepard's absence? Unfortunately all these questions are ignored (in fact the whole plot is ignored) in the sequel C.H.U.D 2: Bud the C.H.U.D. Perhaps they will all be answered in the third part of the trilogy, now 23 years overdue.

C.H.U.D is a solid 80s toxic-monster B-movie. Endearingly awful, but well acted, with a few genuine scares and a big explosion at the end it definately deserves one or two viewings. Probably one. But just because it isn't thought provoking that doesn't mean it won't stimulate discussion!