Highlight on Cult - C.H.U.D.

by Andrew Jupin

If it is one thing that I’m always a sucker for in film it has to be grand shots of old New York. I’m talking about the kind of New York that doesn’t really exist today if you really want to split hairs about it—and I will. In today’s ‘on location’ films set in New York, there grit and grime is gone. The essence of New York that came alive so brightly with the films of Woody Allen or Sidney Lumet is gone. These films exemplify the true greatness of New York and how magnificent of a city it actually is. In these films, we get to see the grit, the grime, the people, the neighborhoods, the anonymous streets and businesses. It is to the credit of filmmakers like Woody Allen and Sidney Lumet that we are so blessed with these on location images. Having recently watched Serpico, one scene that is immediately coming to mind is when Serpico is having a secret meeting with the upper Brass under the Hell’s Gate Bridge in Astoria. Such a random spot to shoot a scene, but it’s just so incredible to look at.

Now with all the Lumet-loving aside, bigger Hollywood pictures aren’t the only place you can go for great examples of prestigious, old New York. A great way to find these great images of old New York is to simply take the budget out of the equation and add some screams. That’s right: low-budget horror films. And one of the best and campiest films to come out of the 1980’s was a little horror film directed by Douglas Cheek in 1984.

This film is C.H.U.D.

Growing up, C.H.U.D. was always a mystery to me. I was fortunate enough to have an uncle who had seen all the lost classics, Plan 9From Outer Space, A Boy and His Dog, Repo Man, etc. And C.H.U.D. was a film in a long list of camp, cult and just plain out-there films that he was a fan of and wanted to pass down to me. So one day we hit the video store in search of this modern camp ‘masterpiece’ as he kept referring to it as. Unfortunately we were only able to come up with the film’s comedic sequel: C.H.U.D. 2: Bud the C.H.U.D. And it wasn’t until years later, as a cinema student sitting with my friends in a crammed dorm room, was I able to get my hands on the lost classic.

The film’s premise is very simple—I suppose: people have been disappearing off the streets of downtown Manhattan all from around the same police precinct. So the precinct captain, Captain Bosch (played with great enthusiasm and seriousness by the hilariously mustachioed Christopher Curry) starts to believe that these disappearances are related. He starts asking around to some of his local informants including a street-smart, man-of-the-people, AJ ‘The Reverend’ Shepherd (another super-serious performance in the film, this time coming from an out-there, big-haired Daniel Stern). As luck would have it, the street people that The Reverend takes care of have been getting attacked underground by what they insist are monsters.

Also hot on the trail is George Cooper, an ex-fashion photographer who is trying to take a more serious turn with his work. Rounding out the ‘big three’ of this cast is John Heard playing Cooper with all the seriousness and enthusiasm as the rest of the cast of the film. I honestly think that that is what adds a lot to the camp value of this film. All of the performances are so dead-on as far as intensity goes. All the actors are really going for it.

The rest of the story is a bit convoluted, but it’s the old “the government is covering up a massive chemical dumping scam that’s going on beneath the city and accidentally turning its underground inhabitants into flesh eating monsters” storyline.

On top of all the flesh-eating terror, one of the best parts of C.H.U.D. is all the on location shooting. The entire film was shot on location in New York, right out in the streets, in all the dark alleys, real neighborhoods and perfect venues. At one point in the film there is a sequence that starts at the break of dawn. The first few seconds capture the World Trade Center just as the sun is rising and it really makes for quite the beautiful shot. It’s a really great reminder of what the city once looked like and audiences are very fortunate that this film is just one of many that have preserved New York’s former image. It’s also funny that because films like C.H.U.D. are pretty much all but forgotten outside of the camp and cult worlds, they don’t fall victim to any kind of digital restoration or ‘correction’ that would possibly remove the World Trade Center or something like that. Instead, these films are left just as they were and just how they should be.

C.H.U.D. is a great example of a real campy film that stays alive through word-of-mouth. It’s really great to see all these well-known character actors just as they were starting out making films—in one of the final scenes, a very young John Goodman even makes an appearance playing a cop who flirts with a waitress at a diner. The story is absolutely absurd and the gore effects are actually pretty good. For such a nothing-budget film, the gore and monster effects actually turn out to be pretty believable.

If you haven’t seen C.H.U.D. before, the best way to watch it is to grab a few of your closest friends, get some beer and some food, sit back and crack every single joke you can. I would say a good eighty-nine percent of the dialogue is delivered with (unintentionally) hilarious timing and you and all your friends will have a great time laughing along to the film.

Oh and the acronym? Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers or C.H.U.D.