C.H.U.D.
Tags: cult, violence

Plot synopsis:
The film opens with a woman walking her dog down a empty, darkened city street. As she passes by a manhole, she is attacked by a creature, and the dog is pulled in after her.George Cooper (John Heard) lives with his girlfriend Lauren (Kim Greist). George, a once-prominent fashion photographer, has since forgone the fame and fortune. His current project is photographing New York City's homeless population, specifically those known as "undergrounders", or people who reside within the bowels of the city. Lauren is a current fashion model who met George during one of his photo jobs.A police captain named Bosch (Christopher Curry) is introduced. Bosch has a personal interest in the recent flood of missing persons (most of whom are homeless) being reported to his precinct. Bosch interviews A.J. "The Reverend" Shepherd (Daniel Stern), who runs the local homeless shelter and soup kitchen. Shepherd believes recent events to be a part of a massive government cover-up and has the evidence to prove it which include an NRC radiation detector and a boot which is part of an anti-contamination crewperson.Bosch's superiors know more than they are letting on and seem to be taking their cues from an overly glib, weasely type named Wilson (George Martin), who works for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.It turns out there are monsters lurking beneath the streets; beings that were once human, but radioactive, chemical toxic waste has mutated them into hideous, flesh-eating creatures that prey on the homeless who live in the underground. Given the recent drop in the underground transient population, the creatures have resorted to coming to the surface through sewer manholes at night in order to feed.When Wilson sends a EPA crew to clean up part of the sewer, Bosch has a group of policemen armed with flamethrowers escort them. Watching through a video camera one of the EPA men has, they encounter an unknown number of the creatures and the video is suddenly cut off.Next, Bosch, Wilson and their associates view a dead creature that was found and Wilson admits that a top-secret goverment file that he has, titled 'C.H.U.D.' that the creatures stand for Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller, the former homeless people infected by nuclear radiation. Captain Bosch argues with Wilson over how to best deal with the threat: Wilson wants to seal the sewers, open up some methane gas lines, and asphyxiate the C.H.U.D.s, despite the inherent danger to the city that the poison gas could drive the creatures to the surface.Through a series of events, both George and A.J. Shepherd find themselves trapped in the sewers. George goes down with a local reporter (who gets eaten). Because of the secret that Wilson and his unseen superiors guard, it leads to the extent of having a mysterious and threatening lackey disrupt A.J. from making phone calls to the press. This thug then locks A.J. in an underground access tunnel. George and A.J. later find each other and attempt to escape from the sewers while evading the creatures.Meanwhile, Lauren is alone in her apartment waiting for George to return when she deals with a clogged shower drain which splurts up blood. Next, a creature comes up through the sewer access point that Lauren unfortunately decided to open in the basement of her apartment building. The so-called CHUD creature kills two policemen who investigate noises in the building. The creature breaks into Lauren's apartment, only to be dispatched when she decapitates it with a sword.Next, a group of the creatures (more then four are never shown on screen) attack a local diner and apparently kill everyone there. Because of the media coverage of the massacre, Wilson decides to take charge the start the flooding of the sewers with gas. When Lauren sees this announcement on her TV set, she sets out to find George, having previously told him that she is pregnant. She takes the murdered policemens car and races off to find help.Through the dangerous investigative efforts of both A.J. and George, the absolute horror is revealed. They find crates of nuclear and radioactive waste in an area which is the CHUD's dwelling place. Seeing the boxes marked 'C.H.U.D.' they realizes that CHUD actually stands for 'Contamination Hazard Urban Disposal.' The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is directly involved in the slaughter that has been going on. Although the political bureaucracy has forbidden the NRC to transport the toxic wastes through New York because of the large-scale danger to the public, it has secretly been hiding the waste by-products beneath Manhattan in abandoned subway tunnels. Unfortunately, the underground homeless population has been coming into contact with these by-products, turning them into the mutated creatures.George and A.J. find the remains of the dead EPA and police crew and use the video camera to call for help and they inform Bosch about what they found. With Wilson already starting the gas flow to kill the creatures, Bosch attempts to save the two men, only for Wilson to stop him. Bosch reveals that he knows all about the goverment cover-up and of the real abreviation for CHUD. Wilson pulls out a gun, intending to kill Bosch to protect his secret, but Bosch overpowers him and takes the keys to a delivery truck blocking a manhole cover to let George and A.J. out. But just when Bosch drives the truck off the manhole cover, Wilson appears and shoots him. Wilson then comandeers the truck to run over and kill George and A.J. However, Lauren also comes upon the scene and attempts to help them escape. A.J. takes Bosch's gun and shoots at Wilson as he drives the truck, fataly wounding him. The truck hits the open manhole and it explodes due to the methane gas pouring out of the sewer. George and Lauren embrace, happy to be reunited, while A.J. is releaved that Bosch, despite being shot through the chest, is still alive as he stands near the remains of the burning truck.

Review: The fact that this dialogue was ad-libbed says a lot about the gonzo film-making that produced C.H.U.D.Story writer Shep Abbott came up with the word, "CHUD" during a party with actors Stern and Heard.
The trio then brainstormed a movie idea around the word, Abbott wrote up an extreeemely rough draft (he'd never written a screenplay before), and it ended up on the slush pile of producer Andrew Bonime.Bonime tried to get Abbott to polish the script, but was never satisfied with the rewrites (partially due to Abbott's inexperience), and took the screenplay away from Abbott, giving it to writer Parnell Hall.Bonime had picked up the project partially because Abbott could get Daniel Stern and John Heard to star.
(Heard and Stern have worked together in a number of movies over the years, including 'Home Alone I & II' and 'The Milagro Beanfield War'.)The two actors agreed to work for scale plus a percentage of the profits, but insisted that Christoper Curry be hired to play the part of Police Detective Bosch, and that Douglas Cheek be hired as director.
And they really have fond, funny memories of the film, despite all the turmoil.As a counterpoint to their comments, producer Andrew Bonime set up a website, telling his own side of the story.Don't miss sitcom stars John Goodman and Jay Thomas in bit parts as extremely unlucky cops, during the movie's last half hour.
John Heard, a talented actor who never became the star he was tipped to be (just rent 'Cutter's Way' for proof of his potential), plays a photographer who had taken some photos of homeless people who now seem to have disappeared off the face of the Earth.
Kin Griest ('Brazil') plays Heard's supportive girlfriend, Daniel Stern ('Diner') an oddball who runs a soup kitchen who has noticed the absence of many of his regulars, and Christopher Curry ('Starship Troopers') a cop investigating a series of mysterious murders.
"C.H.U.D." takes a formula familiar to anybody who's seen a '50s 'Big Bug' flick: Evil Guys In Suits are dumping toxic waste where it doesn't belong (in this case, the sewers below Manhattan), thus inspiring some unexpected and unpleasant side effects in the homeless people living under the city--they transform into C.H.U.D.s (Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers), reptilian-looking monsters with a taste for human flesh.
In it, the city of New York has come under attack by these monstrous denizens of the sewer lines and subway system (or is that a redundancy?), the result of the ill-considered dumping of radioactive waste by those bastids at the NRC, and a beleaguered cop (Christopher Curry), a hippy-type soup kitchen owner (Daniel Stern) and a hunky fashion photographer (John Heard) try to get to the, uh, bottom of the escalating nastiness.
Befitting its grimy underground milieu and many seedy characters, the film has a dark, dirty feel but is still fun to watch; "C.H.U.D."'s no dud, but it sure piles on the crud!
The film would surely have benefited from a larger budget--its glowing-orbed monsters look pretty ridiculous when seen clearly--but still features decent-enough acting, an effectively somber synth score by Cooper Hughes, an explosive shower scene, John Goodman and Jay Thomas (of all people!) as a pair of goofy cops, and some mildly effective gross-outs.
This is a wonderful film filled with tension, good acting, a thoughtful script, witty dialogue, and some creatures that certainly looked pretty scary to me.
The basic premise of the film is that homeless folks that live underground have come in contact with radioactive materials which transform them into horrible-looking mutants that go on a rampage and kill men and women for dinner.
it's a fun and scary monster movie that actually draws emotion from its viewers that make you root for the heroes, despise the villains, and cheer when the CHUDs get the ***t kicked out of them.Sure, it's got a low budget...
The coolest abbreviation in horror cinema stands for Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers (as well as something else) and refers to hideous monsters with fluorescent eyes that live in the sewers of Soho.
While Curry is the main actor, two better-known names have key supporting roles, Daniel Stern as the grimy soup kitchen director (only the destitute would accept a meal from him) and John Heard as a photographer.Heard's character has little to do with the story, and the way he's brought in is lazy and forced.
Sewer creatures rising up in the big city is not a bad concept, but not only does the film fail to do anything with it, we get a lot of inert moments where people trade cliché-ridden dialogue like: "Keep a lid on it." "Nothing, huh?
entertaining flick is downright grim and quite gory at times it has a witty script good acting a cool ending and a nice little twist that you don't see coming it has decent humor hardly any logic lapses and is just fun to watch and in the final scene John Goodman shows up!!!!!!!!!
the dialog is always interesting and it has a lot of cool death scenes and cool looking creatures and it sets up a sequel (in my opinion) a real sequel there is a sequel but it's unrelated to the first i have not seen it yet anyway back to the movie i liked the grim feeling throughout the movie it was also kinda creepy the actors deliver funny performances but it has a few flaws it slows down in the middle only to pick up near the end and there is not a lot of action still its a decent little flick that i recommend **1/2 out of 5.
Then some locals take an interest in the events and venture underneath the city, where they stumble upon government secrets and mutation beings.Now, looking back to when the movie was made, I would say that the creature effects were actually quite good.
The characters played by both Heard and Greist were pretty much of the extraneous type, as they could have easily been removed and we still would have had a viable story, one with a quicker pace, but given Heard was, and is, a relatively well known actor (at least in terms of B films), one would probably want to take advantage of the fact that he'd be interested in appearing in modestly budgeted film.
Now to be honest with a title like C.H.U.D. you're expecting to see nothing but mayhem involving strange creatures attacking people, there are a few attack scenes but they all only last a few seconds and there is almost zero gore, there's a bit of suspense but the film is never actually scary.
I first heard about '80s creature feature C.H.U.D. in the pages of Fangoria, where I was particularly impressed by a selection of gruesome stills featuring mangled corpses, victims of the film's Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers, homeless people who have mutated into hideous monsters after exposure to toxic waste dumped in the sewers.
The Director's Cut, now available on DVD, not only includes the missing gore, but also puts events back in their correct order; however, even though things are now as they were originally intended by director Douglas Cheek, C.H.U.D. still feels like it could do with more work, the film devoting far too much screen-time to dull chit-chat when it should be delivering monster mayhem.
When the creatures do appear, the film is a lot of fun, the creepy critters boasting rubbery claws, snaggle teeth and glowing eyes; there just isn't enough of the good stuff to offset all of the scenes where very little of interest occurs.4.5/10, rounded up to 5 for the decapitated heads, one of which belongs to a C.H.U.D. that meets the business end of a samurai sword..
The film has three heroes: John Heard, a photographer who is clued into the existence of monsters living in the sewers, Christopher Curry, a police detective investigating several disappearances, and Daniel Stern, who runs a soup kitchen where many underground-dwelling homeless people tell him about the weird happenings below.
To me, the film deserved a more gritty, less cheesey (i.e., fake gore and goofy looking monsters) approach, with a more visually gifted director (David Fincher perhaps?) and better actors than John Heard and Daniel Stern (who aren't bad, by the way.) See Alligator (1980) as an example of a movie like this that is done well.
John Goodman Jay Thomas John Heard and Daniel Stern in a low budget horror film.
Following a series of strange disappearances, a photographers' investigation reveals the sewers of New York are crawling with cannibalistic mutants spawned from government-released toxic waste and must find a way of stopping them from overtaking the city.Overall this one was a quite fun creature feature.
Another battle in the apartment complex is great, as the continual escapes into hiding offer up some really tense cat-and- mouse stalking scenes that are easily some of the best atmosphere in the film and the final chase to get out of the sewers away from the creatures before they get loose as the race to get out with the gas coming after them is pretty great as well making it really enjoyable.
This is a classic example of how to make a movie, without a dime in you pocket, but with a mind full of ideas, please by all means ignore the "In Name" only sequel which apparently was made with laughs in mind, alas they were not to be found where i was sitting.Anyway, back to business, I make no apologies for saying this, but C.H.U.D. is F.U.N. the script is littered with snappy one liners, a soundtrack slightly reminiscent of Lucio Fulci's "Zombie" which is no bad thing, also present we have a number of really good performances, from the likes of Daniel Stern, looking like a real junior hairball, My personal favourite John Heard[a serious highlight as the bartender in "After Hours"] also on show albeit in minor roles, the likes of Sam McMurray, Lee Richardson and also encoring at the beginning we catch a brief glimpse of the late great Jan Saint, you know who he is!Now the version i purchased just recently, was the Anchor Bay release, back in the day, when Chud was first released here in the U.K. The scene in the diner prompted a notion that a sequel would come along at any time, however upon viewing the DVD release, the ending in now situated in the middle, which kinda makes me feel more positive about the whole viewing experience, The positives vibes being that the intended sequel viewed through the Medusa release, was never ever going to materialiseIf i were to have one quibble, it would be with the Commentary track included in the DVD, the gathering of Heard/Stern/Abbott and especially Curry should have been a little more serious, that the anorak in me there, it's always good to know the little things that went on in a movie, especially one a fun a this, but hey, at the end of the day, the film still stands tall..
"C.H.U.D" is a great,80's poverty row ,low,low budget horror film...It features an amazing cast of character actors, monsters that are so bad that they don't show up untill the end of the movie, a meandering script...and you know what it's tons of  fun!
We must be talking about CHUD here!This shining gem of a movie must have been made for under $1000 in 1984; it's basically filmed on 2 sets; one's a city block (where there's no traffic, ever?), and the other a big open underground cavern.
Wonderfully goofy sci-fi / horror monster movie stars John Heard and Daniel Stern as George Cooper and "Reverend" A.J. Shepherd, two NYC denizens.
Heard plays a significant role in the climax and Greist has two of the movie's most effective jumps, first in a shower scene and later in a fight against a C.H.U.D. But Curry and Stern have the more interesting parts, in my opinion.
Before its streets were cleaned up, and well before the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles called it their home, the sewers of New York City belonged to Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers, or "C.H.U.D." as they are more commonly referred to.A cheesy and campy yet fun little romp, "C.H.U.D" is perhaps more notorious for its cast and its mostly improvised dialog than it is for any ground-breaking special effects or actual suspense.
That is what this film does, it starts out with a bang, there are good scenes throughout the picture and the monsters look great!
Premise, so many horror movies have a good to even great premise, but it ends up failing in how it plays out and with this one, we get another one that had potential that ended up being wasted.The story, a woman is walking her dog and is pulled into the sewers by some monstrous looking arm.
Soon he teams up with a photographer (John Heard) and a soup kitchen owner (Daniel Stern) and the trio try to uncover what is behind all the people disappearing.C.H.U.D. has become a cult favorite over the years thanks in large part to its effective poster and the fact that it has a pretty nice cast who would go on to become well known.
Fans of the low-rent 80's horror movies will probably want to check it out but the film should've been much better than it actually is.The problem I have with the film is that so much of the action takes place off the screen.
Before John Heard and Daniel Stern co-starred in "Home Alone", they co-starred in the much more interesting "C.H.U.D.", about derelicts in the New York sewers getting exposed to toxic waste and mutating into Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers.
the government bureaucracy" plot, but without any laughs.Daniel Stern makes a surprisingly good off-beat hero, but after all these years since I first watched the movie, I had completely forgotten John Heard was in it.
Monsters are great,cheesy special effects- the neck stretching scene, hanging stuffed dog, bravo.Fun all the way through, some actual suspenseful scenes, perfect ending, this film well-deserves a healthy cult status/following!.
This movie too has likable actors, like the very good Heard as a photographer, Kim Griest, his wife, and Stern who run a soup kitchen for the not so fortunate underground dwellers.
It's a wonderfully atmospheric monster movie that makes up for deficiencies in budget with a gritty vibe and on-the-street look, with the real-life New York locations never looking grubbier or a more fitting place to shoot such a story.
A bizarre series of murders in New York City seems to point toward the existence of a race of mutant cannibals living under the streets.This is a pretty good 1980s horror film, though there seem to be fewer elements of horror and more elements of a corrupt government.
The corruption elements are not unlike the films of Larry Cohen, though here it seems to be simply a plot point rather than what Cohen would have done, making some social commentary on nuclear waste or bureaucracy.What works well is how New York City acts as a character in its own right.
The one moment the movie is about the Daniel Stern character, while the other it's about the John Heard and the other its about good old Captain Bosch.
There's a surprisingly low amount of horror scenes, nearly all of the carnage takes place off screen and the creature action is slim, which are the only things that could have possibly made the useless plot worth sitting through.The only real pluses here are a few good lead actors (whose talents are wasted in service of a film beneath them) and some amusing lines of dialogue (apparently much of it improvised on the spot).
This low budget horror film has a very good cast for a B movie monster flick.
Captain Bosch knows that his wife isn't the only person to disappear recently & a man named A.J. Shepherd (Daniel Stern) has reported the disappearance of a group of homeless people who live in the sewers, interested Bosch goes to visit Shepherd & working together they discover that due to toxic waste being dumped under the city the homeless people who live underground have mutated into hideous monsters (with glow in the dark eyes!) who feed on human flesh & they are ready to go up top to find food...Standing for either Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller or Contamination Hazard Urban Disposal C.H.U.D. was directed by Douglas Cheek & I vividly remember renting C.H.U.D. on VHS here in the UK because of very impressive looking video cover artwork (when will we learn not to judge a film on a few decent looking stills on the back of it's box?) & I didn't like it all that much, I just finished watching it mere minutes ago & I have to say I didn't like that much now either.
I respect C.H.U.D. for trying to be a serious, well thought out horror film with depth & meaningful character's but Jesus Christ is anyone out there going into it for those elements or are they going into C.H.U.D. looking for some good old fashioned monster fun?
I'd wager it's the monster angle every time & since that's the most neglected element of C.H.U.D. it must go down as a disappointment & a missed opportunity.Director Cheek does a really good job & C.H.U.D. is a great looking & feeling horror film, there's a real sense of atmosphere & the constant threat that it will burst into life at any moment which unfortunately it never does.
Soup kitchen cook/reverend, voice-of-the-squalor, AJ(Daniel Stern, wearing the same dirt and clothes throughout the movie)joins forces with beleaguered Precinct Captain Bosch(Christopher Curry)in taking down a governmental conspiracy to cover up the creation of light-bulbed eyed, piranha-teethed, slimy monsters who prey on the homeless who live in the New York City labyrinthine Underground sewers.