C.H.U.D. (1984)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s It About: The sewers of New York City are infested! With homeless people! Fortunately, the C.H.U.D.s are on the case, and help out the city government with their efforts to eliminate the homeless population.

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• 15 minutes in and it’s just John Heard being a dick.
• So the CHUDs have been killing homeless people in NYC who live underground. That’s pretty considerate of them.
• 30 minutes in just one CHUD arm.
• Finally another kill 35 minutes in.
• If they’re not really human, how can they be cannibalistic?
• There’s a metric ton of “That Guys” in this movie.
• John Goodman and Jay Thomas as cops!
• I’m still not exactly sure what’s going on here.
• One of the suits actually says, “Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller.”
• The crooked councilman wants to gas the C.H.U.D.s with Heard and Stern down there. Stern shoots him in the chest and his truck explodes.
• Drink every time Stern says, “Bosch.”

“You really Bosched this Bosch up Bosch-time, eh, Bosch?” – actual dialogue

• Wow what a total fucking dud this movie is. D.U.D. Dumb Uninteresting Dud.
• I think I just broke my nodding off during a movie record.

Is It Actually Scary: I guess if you had a traumatizing experience with a homeless person or a bureaucrat when you were a kid.

How Much Gore: Like a little, I guess? Mostly a homeless guy’s C.H.U.D.-bitten leg. The rest of the gore goes by way too quickly.

Best Scene: I suppose when the boring female protagonist chops off a C.H.U.D.’s head with a decorative sword. It’s really the only time you get to fully see the C.H.U.D.s.

Worst Scene: The scene where Heard and Stern have a meeting with the bureaucrats is about as interesting as a C-SPAN marathon.

C.H.U.D., basically.

Any Nudity: No but you may have seen Daniel Stern’s wiener during one of the times I nodded off.

Overall: How fun, a creature feature with an almost total lack of creatures. C.H.U.D. actually reminds me a lot of Monsters, where extremely boring people talk about society’s ills against the backdrop of creature shenanigans that are rarely seen and insomniacs all over the world rejoice. C.H.U.D. isn’t quite as abysmal as Monsters, but it certainly isn’t good. You’ll notice my observations above were light because nothing really happens. It was like taking the minutes of a town council meeting. I really think this movie has only achieved a small measure of cult status because of its fun title, and that’s really all it has going for it. I really don’t know why they chose to show the C.H.U.D.s so briefly, especially since that when you actually do see them, the makeup effects are pretty decent. It’s not like one of those situations where the creatures look so horribly low budget they have to hide them. But they do that anyway. If you want to watch dickheads talk about the plight of the homeless and see about three shots of sewer monsters, then C.H.U.D. is for you.

Score: 2.5 bowls of homeless soup (out of 10)