 Thanks for checking out this movie review video. This is for the 1981 film The Pit, which is available on the Shutter streaming service when I'm doing this review. Is this a so bad? It's a good film? Yes, it is. But it's so much more than that at the same time, and I'll explain that as I go through. I'm also just gonna talk about the so bad as good aspects, but if you've watched this film and you are like, no, it's just bad, it's just bad, you have to watch it and kind of like try to look past the bad while also at the same time appreciating the bad because there is more to it in my opinion. It doesn't change the fact that it is a bad film overall, but we'll get into it. Also, this is spoilers obviously because it's an old film, so if you haven't seen this film, stop here. Go watch it. It's a treat and then come back. This is directed by Lou Layman and Lou is spelled L-E-W for some reason. I guess maybe that's like shortened for Louis. I don't know. Written by Ian A. Stewart, who actually was not very happy with the way the film ended, and I'll talk about that in a second. This was the first film for Sonia Smiths. She played Mrs. Lind in the film, The Teacher for the Kid Jamie, and she didn't have like a huge role in it, but she went on to have a decent amount of roles after that, including some films such as Videodrome, which is outstanding, owning Mahoney that has a Philip Seymour Hoffman in it and is a pretty solid film, how to deal and then also just a lot of TV show episodes, random here and there. So had a pretty good career. So the original script was actually much darker of a film. More serious and the Trollogs, or as Jamie calls them, the Trollogs, were all in Jamie's head. Also, I believe the stuff with the teddy bear was in Jamie's head as well, which I feel like they should have left it at that in the film. The only thing that says it's not just in Jamie's head in the film, the teddy bear, is when he's by himself, you know, Sandy finds the bear, you know, kind of looks at him, she leaves his bedroom and the bear like turns its head when no one's there. I wish they could have just left that out because it's much better and I think the story and the film is much stronger when you think that everything is literally inside Jamie's head and he's just, you know, a weird kid, a disturbed kid. Yeah. There's a novelization of this film actually, believe it or not. It's called Teddy and it was written by John Galt. So if you have interest, go check that out. So Stuart, Stuart, Stuart, sorry, the full name, Ian A. Stuart, the writer of the film actually ended up shooting all the nude scenes for this film except the skinny dipping one. The skinny dipping one was shot by layman because it was his daughter. Now this sounds really messed up. So he layman, his wife would not let him shoot the nude scenes because she did not want him seeing women naked. But she did let him shoot his daughter naked in the skinny dipping scene, which to me seems worse. I don't know if anyone else feels that way. It seems worse. So the writer, Stuart, actually shot all the nude scenes because layman's wife wouldn't let him. I think that's a weird behind the scenes type thing of this film, odd. The pit itself took two weeks to build. That's a lot of work to put into something like that. It's been said that George Lucas actually drew inspiration for the Ewoks from the Trogs in this. I don't know. I don't know about that. You could see it. I feel like this is just like a rumor that someone put out there and it's gained a lot of traction. I mean, you could see where maybe there's some inspiration there and maybe that's true. But at the same time, it also seems like maybe a bit of a stretch. I don't know. Your thoughts, put them down there. This film immediately sets you up to know that this is going to be terrible. But a good terrible because it looks so bad. The acting is so bad for the most part. Although I will say that Sammy Sniders, the individual who played Jamie actually does a good job with the material. Now, I know at first it may not seem that way and his line delivery sometimes is good. Sometimes it's not the best. It's kind of all over the place. But look at his physical acting. The actual looks that he makes at people, especially when he's doing intense stares. Really good acting in my opinion. I don't know. Do you guys feel the same? I think Sammy Sniders deserves some credit for this role. I'm just saying. He didn't do a lot of acting past this. He did a few other TV show things. It was all when he was a kid and he doesn't act anymore from what I can tell. The party scene footage in the very beginning looks like something from an old PSA or just someone's home video. The quality looks terrible. You can tell this is one of those movies that was just lost for a long time and then someone just happened to find it. It was like, hey, this is so bad. It's good film and that's in style now. So let's put that on Blu-ray, DVD, whatever. But the quality is bad. The 80s outfits don't help these awkward looking kids and these kids in this film will look awkward. And they're actually in the worst part because like that in between stage in particular, like not even just like 80s kids clothing, but like that in between the 70s and 80s, which was happening in 1981, like that clothing for kids in particularly look dorky and terrible. So it took an awkward looking kid or many awkward looking kids in this film and made them look even more awkward. It's just a thing. There's a rapid series of events that establish how alienated Jamie feels from everyone in this film. No matter what, nobody wants anything to do with him. And that's kind of one of the main driving points of this film is the alienation of Jamie at this very pivotal time in his life, which his parents actually state that too sandy when she's the potential babysitter at that point, I guess she's interviewing for it. And they say like he's at a pivotal time in his life. And during this pivotal time, it's basically this push and pull of is he going to kind of retreat into himself? Or is he going to, you know, kind of integrate more into society? Like what type of a person is he going to be from here? And it raises that kind of question of like a nature versus nurture type deal. It's a little bit more than that and deeper than that, but I'm going to talk about it in a little bit. But yeah. But they do a good job of kind of like setting up very early on that he's kind of at odds with everyone societally. Like nobody likes him for some reason. I think just because he's weird. Jamie looking at his parents and babysitter through the glass at the dinner table. So if you remember that he had the drinking glass up and he was looking at his parents through that. Now, I think that's kind of a way of showing that he kind of views people as another species in a way. Because right before that scene, he was looking at his frogs or I'm sorry, his toads that he has in his big aquarium through glass. And then he goes and sits at the dinner table and he's doing that with the glass looking at his parents and Sandy. And I think it was supposed to kind of say that like he's viewing these animals through the glass and he's viewing hit, you know, other human beings through the glass as well. So like he doesn't feel like he belongs either way, you know, like they're all foreign species to him because he doesn't fit in. So I thought that was an interesting visual to have in there for that reason. It sounds like Teddy's voice in this is actually just Jamie's voice voice with an echo showing that he truly lives in his own head like his parents said he does. So I like the fact that they actually just made it his his voice with an echo because that drives home the whole point which was supposed to be the point in the script is that all of this is in his head. He's disturbed. He's not connected to society, but then layman went and changed it around when you shot the film. So those were the bad choices. I think it's a real strong red flag when Jamie says there have been lots of sitters who don't end up coming back. He makes this statement to Sandy. So the fact that Sandy in general is just kind of like this blissful idiot. I mean, she's smart because she's, you know, she asks certain questions and she gets inquisitive about certain things, but she's also really dumb. You know, she's not a very depth. She doesn't have a lot of depth to her when it comes to seeing things around her or being concerned for her safety, other people's safety, putting things together. She just reacts on a very like base level to most things. And one of the big things is when Jamie says that there have been a lot of sitters, that should have been like a huge red flag, but no. And also the fact that when she was being interviewed, she never even wanted to meet Jamie. She just like takes the job. I guess she's really hard up for cash. She just takes the job and then meets him when she starts babysitting for him and the parents have left. It's just her at home with the kid. That's so weird. So it ends up it ends up upping the stakes when Teddy moved his head on his own, I thought, but then they kind of abandoned that. Like, I thought Teddy was actually going to become more of like a demonic force. Like, yes, he talks to Jamie, but I think that either not having him move his head on his own would have been better because then, you know, it's all in Jamie's head. Or if he was just giving ideas or just leave it ambiguous, like that one scene I think just needs to go. Like, I felt like it was up in the stakes. I'm like, oh cool, like Teddy actually can move like he's going to start physically doing things. Here we go. And then it just goes away. So very disappointing that they did that. Sandy knows Jamie is a horny kid who likes all of his babysitters because the parents actually say that to her. They actually say a lot that should have clicked with her. So why would she give him a bath? Like, that's one of the biggest things. He's already established he's a weird kid. He's already established he has anger issues. He's already established that he's just super horny and wants to see her naked. So when he's like asking to get a bath, why does she oblige? And then it gets even worse when he's asking her when it's happening, do you like washing me? Like, this is what I'm talking about, about her like not reacting properly and being like so dense, so dense. It's not a believable character for that reason, honestly. The scene of Jamie pranking Ms. Livingston to get her naked is very outlandish, obviously. It's funny that they put that in there because it's so ridiculous. There's no way that she would actually believe when he was doing that recording over the phone that her niece had been actually kidnapped and that she needs to get naked in front of the window in order for the kid to be returned. Like, that's child logic, that's not adult logic. So it doesn't, it doesn't work. So it's just very outlandish, very ridiculous. But it makes, you know, for another one of those ridiculous moments in the film that make it so bad, it's good film. The scene of Jamie trying to steal the huge like a beef, I think is hilarious. It's just a great visual. He's just like struggling to try and pull this gigantic haunch of beef out of the back of the cooler truck. I just thought that was really, really funny. It makes sense Jamie would feed people to the troggs because it's been established that he's closer to animals than he is to actual people. And this kind of hints at a little something else. Like I said, I'm going to be talking about at the end of this kind of nature versus nurture situation and Jamie being at that pivotal point in his life and making a choice. Obviously he makes the choice to feed human beings to the troggs. They play wacky music when Jamie feeds people to the troggs. So it actually ends up becoming even funnier of a situation. If you notice that, like they didn't even try to put music in that's like scary or suspenseful or tense. It's just like wacky music. It's, it keeps it very lighthearted. It's like, oh, this is so funny. He's feeding people. They could have gone with a very dark tone. And I think they kind of should have with the film. But I'm glad that they didn't because then you have what we have today and you can enjoy it as an awful film. I like how nobody happens to see the giant hole in the ground before they fall into it. That's another aspect of this is that they just like everyone's obviously just like either looking way up or looking off to the side and way up and don't see this gigantic hole in the ground. There is such a thing as like spatial awareness. Like humans have this, but it's devoid of any of that. People are devoid of any of that in the film, not only with people just not seeing the hole until they actually fall in it, but also like Sandy when she's taking a shower and Jamie walks, you know, sneaks into the bathroom. Like spatial awareness. She would know that he's coming in. She would definitely know, especially because of how small that bathroom was. When Jamie lures Freddie and Christina into the woods, he's not just trying to feed the troggs anymore. At this moment, he's actually enjoying tormenting Christina. You see that happening before throwing her in the pit. Now it's interesting because it's a progression of things at that point because initially he just wanted to find out how to feed the troggs because like those were his only friends because he didn't have any actual human friends. So that was his main thing is he was trying to figure out what they would eat. Then he finds out they eat meat and then things just kind of get going. And eventually he, you know, can't catch animals, obviously, because he tries. He tries to get a cow. He tries to get chickens. And then he just decides, well, I can get human beings and I need to feed these troggs. But it goes from being, he's just trying to feed the troggs to he's enjoying killing people or he's enjoying putting, having these people fall into the pit or be pushing on the pit so that the troggs can kill them. Like he's starting to become a serial killer, basically. He's taking enjoyment in it. And you see that in that scene where he starts tormenting Christina after he's already pushed Freddie in and he's about to throw her into it. So that's that where he's, I mean, he's already crossed the line, but like he's made a very conscious decision at that point in his mind that not only has he crossed the line, he enjoys that he crossed the line. Jamie learns a hard lesson when he ends up losing Sandy to the troggs. She was actually the only person who was really nice to him other than his parents. And for that reason, like it does resonate with him, he is upset with it. But obviously, Teddy talks him out of really feeling all that bad about it and just, he continues on. What is with the slapsticky police officer, especially when he has that scene where he sits in the motorized wheelchair and then it just like flies off? Like that's an odd choice as well in this film to just have like this random weird police officer who's kind of this bumbling idiot. Which, you know, like that's a real trope with police in films in like 70s, 80s, 90s. It's changed sense, but I'm sure actually you get it here and there still, but there's more comment back then. I like how Jamie decides he can't feed people the troggs anymore so he sets them free. Because things have just gotten a lot worse. It's this moment where he's just like, I can't do this anymore. I can't because that's that's from the fallout of Sandy being killed by the troggs. He feels the impact and he's like, oh no, like it hits him. He's like, I can't do this anymore. I'm killing people. I can't do this. And then he just lets him go because he also still very much cares for the troggs, obviously. And I don't know if he realizes because there aren't any scenes to kind of synthesize that. I don't know if he realizes that he like definitely made things a lot better or a lot better for the troggs, but a lot worse for everyone else. Excuse me with this lighting is all weird. Yeah, it's just, it's that moment. It's that moment. So why aren't the troggs eating people when they get loose? They're killing and leaving bodies. That's one of the other things. They do, in all fairness, they do end up showing some scenes where they're actually eating some of the bodies. But early on, like when the cops were responding to like the body in the cornfield, I think is where it was, it was just a body and the troggs just killed them and left the person. Like their whole thing was killed to eat. Is this, I don't know if it's trying to show that like they've gone past that, like Jamie was. Like Jamie was just feeding people to the troggs so they could eat and they were just killing people so they could eat. But since Jamie crossed over and started killing people for enjoyment, the troggs also started doing that. Because I do believe there's a reflection when Jamie makes this choice of getting closer to the troggs, there's a reflection of his mental status as being like the troggs, being very primitive, because literally that's what troglodytes are. Troglodyte is basically like a primitive being that's very, very old and primordial, which is talked about in the film when Sandy looks them up in, I think it's like an encyclopedia or something. But yeah, just saying. Awesome. Jamie finally has someone to play with and she feeds him to the troggs. I do like that as an ending. I saw it coming. I was suspicious that that actually was going to end up with, end up being what happened and that does end up being what happens and I was happy with that. I like that ending where he basically gets his at the end and it all comes full circle. I do enjoy that. So some final thoughts on this. There are really abrupt cuts in this film, which from a filmmaking standpoint is one of the things I hate about watching this. It's just like really jarring and really abrupt cuts that are throughout the film and yeah, not so good. It's a very odd coming of age film. That's probably, well maybe not, maybe not the most odd coming of age film, but definitely up there for me. The writing and execution of the film is so bad, it's good, but Sammy Snyder's, this bears repeating, actually does a good job. Just look at those intense stares that he has at People. His physical acting was on point, I do think. This speaks to a kid's societal development and how being good or bad can actually hinge on how the rest of society treats him. Also we don't know the backstory of how he was raised by his parents, so that would kind of get into the nature versus nurture aspect of things. But my next statement is kind of the main crux of the underlying theme of this film and I think this is the statement that really lays out that this film is more than just such a so bad it's good film. Jamie is at a pivotal point when he's torn between developing further and embracing society or clinging tighter to nature and more primitive self-development. Because society shunts him, he chooses nature and enacts bloody revenge, which is the primitive way of solving problems. And that's where you see that the trogs and the way they act is the way that Jamie acts when he embraces that. You see numerous times throughout the film where Jamie is trying to reintegrate himself into society, but people keep pushing him away, pushing him away, pushing him away. So what is he to do? Instead of developing, since he's at that pivotal moment, developing and becoming a good civilized human being, he regresses basically and embraces the only living things that will embrace him, which are the trogs and Teddy, which are primitive and close to nature and definitely not a part of actual society. In fact, so much so that when they're let go, they wreak havoc on society and try to destroy it basically. And if they had not been killed, they would just go and kill everyone. So yeah. The trogs are the human-like counter to the civilized humans in this film. So really, that's the whole push and pull in the film. If you watch it this way, is that Jamie's going through his life and you have the trogs on one side as the uncivilized, savage primitive beings from nature and all the human beings from society who are civilized and prim and proper and all that, even though they treat Jamie terribly. But they basically, by being, you know, not nice to him, not including him, not wanting him, are pushing him to the other side. So I thought it was very interesting. That's the whole nature versus nurture of it. And yeah, also coming of age, they fold into one another, so it works. But overall, I have to rate this two ways, obviously, because it's one of those films. So rating this in the entire pantheon of all films, of the existence of all films, I mean, like one and a half stars out of five, yeah, one and a half stars. But as a so-bad-it's-good film, I'm gonna go three and a half stars. It's a good so-bad-it's-good film. And I would love to see this one get picked up by Joe Bob Briggs for the last drive-in. This one would be a lot of fun, and I think more people should see this film. So if you've seen this film, well, hopefully you've seen this film if you've gone this far, but if you've seen it, please pass it on, get friends to watch it. I plan on doing that for sure. Let's spread the word about the pit, because it's a good time. But thank you for checking this out. Do me a quick favor though, if you like this video or any video I've ever done, please repay me by hitting that subscribe button. That's all I need you to do. You can do the like and all that stuff on the video, but the big thing is hit the subscribe button. Also hit the notification bell button, and that way you'll know whenever I'm putting up new movie reviews or haul videos or unboxings or any of that stuff. Because I'm just doing this, not getting paid, just spending my time trying to build a nerdy horror community, and I would appreciate your buy-in by just subscribing. So thanks, but regardless, I appreciate you taking your time to watch this, and until next time, keep it brutal.