C.H.U.D. (1984) - Douglas Cheek

An alarming amount of people have disappeared over the last few months in New York City.  The thing is, no one seems to care because most of the missing happen to be homeless.  When Captain Bosch attempts to investigate the large number of missing individuals, whose wife is among them, he is turned away by his superiors.   This leads him to form an alliance with Reverend, a soup-kitchen cook, who has noticed a major drop-off in the number of homeless people visiting his kitchen. Together the duo team-up with George Cooper, a fashion photographer whose grown tired of the vapid culture of his profession, to dig deeper and discover the truth behind the growing number of missing.  Douglas Cheek's C.H.U.D. is a fun 80's b-movie that fits nicely into the government conspiracy yarn that was so common for the time period.   Cooper and company discover that these C.H.U.D.s (Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers) were created due to negligence by the government who are simply trying to neatly sweep their mess under the carpet before anyone notices.  The mutant creatures in C.H.U.D. would be considered cheesy by today's make-up and effects standards but they are well-designed and distinctive, mainly due to their bright neon eyes.  From a violence perspective C.H.U.D. takes a while to get going, leaving much of the violence up to the imagination for awhile.  Then the final 45 minutes or so come, with lots of blood splatter, severed limbs, and other gorey-fun for all the gore hounds out there.  C.H.U.D features John Heard, and very young versions of Daniel Stern and John Goodman, making it a fun enough film to watch with a few buddies over some beers.
6.5/10

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