C.H.U.D. (1984)

How do you spell yuck? 'C.H.U.D.'

San Diego Union, The (CA) - August 31, 1984
Author: David Elliott, Movie Critic

"They're not staying down there anymore!" shout the ads for "C.H.U.D.", which stands for "Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers." That's fine by me, but did they have to come up in theaters?

"C.H.U.D" has some rank promise, and for a while I thought it would be more than late-summer filler slop. It has that special feeling of hot Manhattan days when the street gunk sticks to your shoes, slips of steam rise hellishly from manholes, and the vent men and bag ladies are at their most pungently seasoned. On such days New York, the great upward city, seems to be sinking on its grungy piles.

The film might have been grown in a petri dish, and long before the vicious, slimy Chuds appear, we have an icky feeling. Above ground a bright cop (Chris Curry) starts to sleuth the danger, and in the subway approaches to the underworld there's a soup kitchen hippie-saint (Daniel Stern) who knows his smelly customers are in more than usual peril.

There's also a fashion photographer (John Heard) who, shades of "Blow-Up," also photographs bums. Even when his grisly pictures of Chud victims are presented to the Midtown big shots, they try to cover up the truth. And the truth is the ultimate Village Voice story: the Chuds are bums, made radiaoctive and real mean by secret stashes of nuclear waste material.

This could have been a rich mix of horror glop and anti-nuke anxiety. But director Douglas Cheek, a novice at commercial features, lets it down. There are long, trite stretches of talk, the shockers are laughable, and when Cheek gets some action going, he kills it by cutting to other scenes. As a tension strategy that isn't dialectical, it's just dumb.

In the unusually strong cast -- there must be a lot of mortgages to meet -- Stern has the best fun. The young star of "Diner" and "Blue Thunder" dresses in dirt, flashes a gold tooth, and shrieks like the last of the great '60s flake-outs. And George Martin, a veteran at playing arrogant, harrumphing stuffshirts, tops off his specialty as the amazingly obtuse rogue who's dumping the waste.

The basic reward here is watching silliness curdle. A ripe moment comes when Heard's fashion model (Kim Greist) finds an eviscerated dog in her basement. While a Chud adorned in entrails, SoHo Septic style, prowls the building, she calls the cops and then -- takes a shower! As she soaps up, director Cheek makes his dinky bow to Hitchcock's "Psycho."

About the time I learned that "C.H.U.D" also stands for "Contamination Hazard Urban Disposal," I drifted into acronym games myself. This movie is S.C.U.Z. -- a Sluggish Cliched Upchuck Zero.





DEATH IN THE STREETS ... & SEWERS

Philadelphia Daily News (PA) - September 25, 1984
Author: JOE BALTAKE, Daily News Movie Reviewer

"The Evil That Men Do." An action film starring Charles Bronson, Theresa Saldana and Joseph Maher. Directed by J. Lee Thompson from a screenplay by David Lee Henry and John Crowther. Based on a novel by R. Lance Hill. Music by Ken Thorne. Running Time: 90 minutes. A Tri-Star release. In area theaters.

* "C.H.U.D." A thriller starring John Heard and Daniel Stern. Directed by Douglas Cheek from a screenplay by Parnell Hall. Photographed by Peter Stein. Edited by Clair Simpson. Music by Cooper Hughes. Running Time: 110 minutes. A New World release. In area theaters.

You'll have to bear with me. I only review these movies; I don't make them.

The fall movie season may be in full swing now, with quality films like ''Amadeus," "All of Me" and "Places in the Heart" on hand, but that doesn't mean we'll be spared the cheapjack - movies such as "The Evil That Men Do" and "C.H.U.D."

Actually, J. Lee Thompson's "The Evil That Men Do" isn't half bad. It amounts to equal parts of slick and sick, dealing with a professional killer (Charles Bronson) assigned to track down and exterminate a master sadist (Joseph Maher) who works out of Central America, torturing dissidents and those thought to be a threat to a government there.

This material is perhaps too serious to be the basis of a Charles Bronson splatter film, but there's also little doubt that it makes for an explosive and absorbing movie. Which you can't say about most films today.

I didn't expect much and was pleasantly surprised. You'd be advised to go in with the same attitude. Star Bronson and director Thompson do their usual professional jobs, and there's good support from that wonderful character actor, Maher, and from Theresa Saldana, as the token-woman-tagging-along.

One doesn't expect much from a genre film with a title like "C.H.U.D." - Cannibalistic. Humanoid. Underground. Dwellers. The least one expects is a few sick jokes and, perhaps, some totally awful, laugh-provoking effects.

But there isn't much fun to be found in "C.H.U.D." This is one of those pathetic New York horror productions, made by slumming stage personalities who are between plays and have nothing better to do. C'mon, if stars John Heard and Daniel Stern were getting other movie offers, do you think they'd be wasting their time on this stinker?

It is pure exploitation and purely routine. Director Douglas Cheek's plot is about underground monsters that are the result of the the federal government's dumping tons of toxic chemicals into the sewer system - in this case, the sewers of SOHO (an inside joke I guess, among the film's New York cast and crew).

Anyway, in addition to the usual vagrants, street people and bag ladies, the Soho sewer system now contains a race that resembles the Creature from the Black Lagoon (a movie that this film half-heartedly apes) and that have a penchant for grabbing their unsuspecting victims by the ankles and wolfing them down, leaving bits behind.

Heard plays a fashion photographer who is inexplicably (and incredibly) involved, and Stern is the crummy owner of a soup kitchen whose patrons are slowly dwindling. These two talented actors, who are never on screen together (except for one brief bit near the end), apparently shot their respective footage independently of one another - sort of like what Dudley Moore and Eddie Murphy did in "Best Defense."

**SINGLEG* Parental Guide: Both are rated R, largely for language and gore.