The Pit (1981)

[lester1/2jr]

This is like Troll 2 with less inadvertant comedy and with Sleepaway Camp type sexual creepiness. I know alot of people don't like Sleepaway Camp or Todd Solondz/ the Baby type "mental chainsaw massacre" movies so they may want to steer clear of this though it isn't nearly as outrageous as those others. For me personally, I can't think of too many movies I enjoyed more, ironically or otherwise, than Sleepaway camp or Troll 2 so I was very into this though it isn't QUITE as compelling or crazy as those two. It's darn close though.

A kid with no friends' parents go away for a LONG TIME so he gets a hot babysitter who he then falls in love with and attemps to see naked/ seduce etc. The kid is very good so is some other kid as a neighborhood girl who insults him all the time for being different. The adults are okay. That's the creepy part. THEN there is the Troll part. (the kid is 12 btw)

Scary troll things live in this hole in the ground and no one knows about them except the kid. They seem to communicate with him via telepathy or something. There is a supernatural element that they never come close to explaining but it doesn't really matter. When it isn't being perverted there are the trolls. It might be the exact moment 70's drive in and grindhouse turned into the early 80's vhs horror boom. The "sooory"'s give away that it's Canadian.

4.5/5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZjxT1odptY&feature=related
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best comment "it's good to see a film that shows autism in a better light... People who are autistic are not mentally retarded they just think differently"

[Dave M]

The guy who wrote the original screenplay showed up around here a few years back. They changed his story a lot, the trogs were originally supposed to be imaginary, and I think maybe the whole thing was actually based on a true story, or various case studies of psychotic children or something.

[lester1/2jr]

I had read that but I think having the trolls was a good idea. It made it feel more contemporary, the rest of the film was very 70's

[The Burgomaster]

We had a VHS copy of this at the video store where i worked about 25 years ago.  I remember enjoying the low-budget absurdity of this movie and I'm surprised I haven't watched it again.

[hedgie]

I also love this movie, it is akward on so many levels.  So many loops never close, especially the evil robotic/demon possesed teddy bear.  I also read about the thing with the screenwriter having his script mangled, and it seems as if the director really tried to project a lot of his own personal baggage into the story.  I have watched this a dozen times in the last few years and i never tire of it.

[retrorussell]

The movie would have been much cooler if the "Tra-la-logs" looked like the monster on the video cover, and not just hairy cavemen.

[AndyC]

The teddy bear seemed like the movie was just trying to cram too much in. The kid's a psycho and he hears his teddy bear telling him to do things. Makes sense. Then the bear goes and moves on its own. Creepy, yes, but it raises that whole supernatural thing that never goes anywhere.

I especially loved how nobody could see this huge hole in the ground until they fell into it. Really, there was a lot of just plain goofy stuff that would have been more understandable if they had stuck with the idea of it all being part of the kid's psychosis and not real.

And I could never understand just how anyone made the connection that Jamie was autistic. Schizophrenic maybe. Certainly delusional. A bit of a sociopath. Kind of pervy. I don't think it was stated in the movie that he was autistic, but somewhere along the line, somebody decided he was.

[Skull]

The guy who wrote the original screenplay showed up around here a few years back. They changed his story a lot, the trogs were originally supposed to be imaginary, and I think maybe the whole thing was actually based on a true story, or various case studies of psychotic children or something.

I'm not sure about the intent of the director, because there were scenes where we seen the dolls are moving independly (which tell's you that the kid either has psychic powers or is dreaming the monsters) then the story makes it like the creatures were real. It seems that the last minute changes were made after development (or the director forgot about the toys in the script)

[Andrew]

Ian Stuart wrote the screenplay, and he was kind enough to let me interview him a few years back.  In the interview he talks about his original script, and it sounds like a story where the audience has a hard time finding what reality is, because the story is seen through the eyes of Jamie (the boy).  Here is the interview:

http://www.badmovies.org/interviews/ianstuart/