Let
me ask you a real head-scratcher. Don’t worry, you can get
back to me on the answer. Is it wrong to connect Michigan to a film
that deals with a creepy sexually perverted 12-year-old feeding
his enemies to a group of troglodytes that live in a hole in the
ground? Cry foul and burn me as a warlock if you like, but to the
billions of lovers of freaky-deaky sexual perversion, the mitten
state and underground troglodytes, the 1981 flick The Pit
is the right movie for the right place. Even though it was shot
in a made-up someplace called Canada, the film speaks to me in a
way that reminds me of my first eighteen years, growing up in Muskegon,
where, if memory serves correct, I really did think that trolls
lived in a pit found in the woods near my parent’s house.
Everybody thought that, right? Maybe not, but you can’t deny
that growing up in some of Michigan’s more sleepy (a.k.a.
dead azz boring) towns can make a young guy or gal go totally flip-out,
cooku-count-dooku nuts and start imagining the darndest things are
going on right next door. However, I seriously doubt that any of
these bored youth fantasies were ever as gripping or shockingly
sexually stupid as the in-depth character study of a wacky nut job
that is The Pit.
The Pit’s main character is a bowl-haircut-wearin’,
nasal-voiced, sad-sack, brain-damaged, Judd Nelson-lookin’
main foolinator named Jamie. This here Jamie is played with irritating
grace and zero charm by the child actor that time forgot and God
never forgave, Sammy Snyders. Jamie is a boy who, just like us all,
has many rich passions in life. He loves his evil teddy bear named
Teddy (Kubrick, how dare you steal from The Pit!), he loves looking
at frogs (!), he loves naked chicks and checking out their boobs
and riding girl’s bikes. Much to your surprise, I’m
sure, poor Jamie has zero friends. Everyone in his small town thinks
he is the weird perverted kid that he actually is. The only things
in the world that like his company are the “troglodytes”
(trag-la-dites) that live in giant pit in the woods next to his
house. It’s a one-sided relationship; they only like Jamie
because he feeds them crappy candy bars from time to time. Haven’t
we all been in that situation?
Anyway, seems Jamie’s parents have had enough of their kid,
so they split to somewhere and leave weirdo in the care of a young
saucy sex-bomb babysitter named Sandy. Sandy is played with shame
by someone named Jenny Elise, claims she’s studying psychiatry
and she specializes in “exceptional children.” After
watching The Pit, I think she’s more of specialist
in bad acting and wearing super-tight T-shirts.
Jamie instantly takes a shining to lovely Sandy and even confesses
to Teddy, “She’s not like the others, she’s pretty!
Reeeeally pretty!” Problem is, Sandy has a boyfriend who happens
to be a college jock with a frizzy perm. You can imagine how this
makes Jamie feel. HORNIER! Teddy urges Jamie to look at Sandy naked
and in the next scene, the baby-sitter wakes up to find Jamie standing
over her bed and staring at her bare nipple. Dy-no-mite! Way to
impress the older ladies, kid! The awkwardness doesn’t stop
that tease Sandy from little Jamie’s back while he takes a
bath, just moments later. Seriously. Eww. During this tender moment,
Jamie asks Sandy if, “two people can fall in love when they’re
young?” Ouch. That’s an awkward one. Naturally, as all
romantic conversations do, the talk turns back to troglodytes.
As the touching forbidden love between Jamie and Sandy grows, so
does the relationship between Jamie and the troglodytes. Jamie tells
the trogs all about Sandy and tells Sandy all about the trogs. Sandy,
amazingly, thinks Jamie is full of it, but smiles and thinks that
his ideas are “special.” Dummy, don’t ya know
you’re just gonna get fed to the trogs with that way of thinking?
Oops! Did I give something away there? Right after Jamie writes
“I love you” on the mirror in lipstick while Sandy showers,
he runs upstairs and steal some cash from her purse. What does he
do with this cash? Buys raw meat to feed to the trogs! Now, let
me stop for a minute to explain that these trogs are depicted in
The Pit by four actors in monkey suits and monster masks
dancing around and obviously not knowing what the hell they’re
supposed to be doing. Every once in a while we see things through
“trog-vision” which you yourself can experience by holding
the bottom of beer bottle up to your eye and looking around. Special
eee-fects!
So Jamie has stolen all of Sandy’s cash and he’s not
able to feed meat to the trog guys in monkey suits anymore. For
answers, he turns to that master of all profound knowledge, Teddy.
The stuffed bear tells him to start feeding the trogs all the people
that have ever pissed him off. BRILLIANT! At this point, The
Pit not only kicks into maximum overdrive but provides wish
fulfillment for all Midwest kids who forever secretly dreamed of
feeding dumb people to Canadian actors in monkey suits. One by one,
all of Jamie’s enemies go into the pit. Little girls, Sandy’s
boyfriend, the school bully, and even an old blind lady in a wheelchair
are dropped down there.
Not surprisingly, it doesn’t take long before Sandy is led
to the pit where she accidentally falls in and is eaten alive. Jamie
bugs out, runs home and cries to Teddy. He soon recovers, and to
help his only friends, he drops a rope into the pit so the trogs
can climb out and eat anyone they want. An ass-backwards police
subplot begins when the cops try to find out who killed all these
people. The cops soon find the trogs and shoot them. Yep, that’s
it! Seems like The Pit’s screenwriter, a Mr. Ian
A. Stuart, couldn’t figure out a good way to end his complex
script so the cops just shoot the trogs! One redeeming moment happens
at the very end where Jamie goes off to live with his grandparents
and instantly meets a girl named Wendy. They go off to race when
guess what? She shows him a giant hole in the ground where her friends
live. As Jamie looks down and says, “They’re troglodytes,
they eat people,” little Wendy says, “I know”
and shoves Jamie into the pit! Zing! Shocker!
So what have we learned today? Besides that The Pit is
just about the dopest of dopey movies ever made, we’ve learned
quite a bit about recognizing your own sexuality. When a weird kid
who talks to underground monsters asks you to wash his back, DON’T
DO IT! Even if it is Clive Owen! It is BAD NEWS! Also, please cover
your nipple when sleeping in the same house as a horny 12-year-old.
And three, don’t be led in into the woods by a stranger as
he or she is most likely about to feed you to some guys in furry
costumes. As residents of Michigan, we can thank The Pit, Amulet
Pictures, director Lew Lehman, and Anchor Bay Entertainment who
brought us the film’s DVD, for teaching us and showing us
such an important film. I believe that we can all learn a little
more about love and sharing one’s feelings from The Pit, and
understand that feeding one’s enemies to monsters is a beautiful
expression of personal freedom. Perhaps the film’s pit is
a symbol for the darker parts of one’s self that he or she
does not want to come to terms with. Or perhaps it is just a crappy
movie from Canada. Either which way, it’s 96 minutes of flesh-eating,
nipple-staring movie firecracker madness, and it is here for us
to love.
Email
watchmenow@annarborpaper.com
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