1984 | R | 1 Hr 28 Min | Horror | New World Pictures
Director: Douglas Cheek
Writers: Parnell Hall (screenplay), Shepard Abbott (story)
Stars: John Heard, Daniel Stern, Christopher Curry
Synopsis:
A rash of bizarre murders in New York City seems to point to a group of grotesquely deformed vagrants living in the sewers. A courageous policeman, a photojournalist, and his girlfriend, and a nutty bum, who seems to know a lot about the creatures, band together to try and determine what the creatures are and how to stop them.
And all though Joe Bob shocked the fans with such a low 2-star rating I'm here to say C.H.U.D. is still a fun little 80s cult classic. Back in July of 2018 Joe Bob and Shudder broke the internet bringing back the show for what was assumed to be a 24-hour marathon one-off, hence its title, The Last Drive-In With Joe Bob Briggs. But the event proved so popular that Shudder brought him back for another marathon at Thanksgiving, Dinners of Death, and a third in December, A Very Joe Bob Christmas. But Shudder on March 29, has brought back Briggs who will host a weekly double feature of movies for Shudder on Friday nights, for which he will both introduce and interrupt films, delivering to viewers the distinctive mix of horror-themed wit and wisdom he honed on TMC’s Joe Bob’s Drive-In Theater in the ’80s and ’90s, as well as on TNT’s MonsterVision.
What's really great about The Last Drive thanks to Twitter this has proved to be communal experiences for horror fans who weren’t physically watching the movies together.
Although this Shaksperaing Actor lead movie staring Home Alone's John Heard, Daniel Stern who headed back to New York for Home Alone Two take the driver seat in this one. Sterns real-life wife Laure Mattos, is the movie's first on-screen victim. C.H.U.D. was also the first gig for Kim Greist and Jay Thomas who is seated next to a young John Goodman in the dinner scene. According to Brigg's most of the cast had Theatre background with Shaksper in the park leading the way. For me, the acting in a low budget B movie was pretty spot on leaving one to think this is why people actually like it.
What people complain about the most is the lack of C.H.U.D.'s. The C.H.U.D.s themselves are barely there for far too long. Low budget horror and sci-fi movies try a lot of strategies to make the most of what they have, cleverly keeping the audience from realizing they aren’t seeing as much as they think they are, embracing humor and camp or being, simply put, groundbreaking and creative but for many C.H.U.D. employs none of them, opting instead to solve the problem with acting. I'm not sure I agree 100%.
I first watched C.H.U.D. back int he early heyday of VHS and have not seen it since so I was going into it very fresh and open-minded. I came out of it still wondering why so much hate for the Urban Dwellers? With a simple plot and simple monsters you still get a pretty decent '80s romp that for some can still be fun.
''C.H.U.D.'' makes no pretension toward serious theses about government or the environment. It is meant to be light entertainment, that is in the category of horror, it still stands as a praiseworthy effort.
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| 3 Bloody Brains out of 5 |
The first film was enjoyable... and a good post !!
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