Movie Info
Movie Name: The Pit
Studio: Amulet Pictures
Genre(s): Horror
Release Date(s): October 23, 1981
MPAA Rating: R
I lay claim to this giant pit in the woods that no one has ever noticed
Jamie Benjamin (Sammy Snyders) is hated by his classmates, scares adults, and abandoned by his parents who leave him with babysitters. Jamie’s only friend is his teddy bear “Teddy” and new friends he discovers in a pit in the woods. Jamie’s new friends need food, and Jamie decides he has to do whatever he can to feed the tra-la-logs.
Directed by Lew Lehman, The Pit (originally entitled Teddy) is a Canadian horror film (though shot in Wisconsin). The movie went through a lot of changes in the script during production (the original story is closer to the novelization by John Gault. It was released on DVD in a double package with the 1989 film Hellgate, but is currently out-of-print.
Ok babysitter, psycho boy is obsessed with you and about 15…the next logical step is to give him a bath
The Pit is from 1981 but looks like it is from 1971. The movie is only about 90 minutes long but the first ten minutes of the movie is a scene from about halfway through the movie that they randomly replay. It just feels like you missed half the movie and it isn’t a very compelling scene. It isn’t like you watch it and say “oh, how did Jamie end up like this”.
“Teddy” (what an original name for a teddy bear) randomly talks. At first you think Teddy is just Jamie’s imagination (he talks in Jamie’s voice), but in a later scene with the babysitter, Teddy turns his head. Since the film was originally titled Teddy, it can be assumed that he had a bigger role…but now the movie just isn’t clear what Teddy is supposed to be. If the movie is about creatures living in the ground, it shouldn’t be about a talking teddy bear. If it is about a talking teddy bear, the creatures in the pit should probably be ignored
I’m just a bitter angry killer because I’m hungry and don’t know what the hell I’m suppose to be.
Jamie is just creepy. He spies on naked women in the neighborhood but gets excited by getting to ride his neighbor’s girly bike. He pretends to kidnap the neighbor’s niece and forces her to strip for him. His babysitter Sandy O’Reilly (Jeannie Elias) is worried because he spies on her naked, but then gives him a bath. They indicate that he could be autistic, but it just seems that it was thrown out there to make his creepy behavior more acceptable (which is a bad way to do it).
The next problem with The Pit is the actual pit. It is in the middle of a normal looking woods, on a path, and no one has ever noticed it…a giant pit full of monsters. The monsters (little people in bad costumes) just kind of stand around most of the movie and wait for Jamie to trick people into falling into a giant pit in the woods. The ironic twist in the movie is that there are more pits like this all over the United States apparently (yet, once again no one knows about them).
With all the problems, you have to see The Pit. It is one of the best bad movies ever and is so watchable. I can say that The Pit is probably my favorite bad movie, and I have subjected friends and family to it. When The Pit comes out in HD, I am there! It is weird, nonsensical, and if The Pit can get a budget, anyone can make a movie.
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