I have seen this film a couple of times. The first time, I was a kid and my parents rented it and I remember being disappointed. The next time was tonight and I was again, disappointed by it. What is wrong with it, you ask? Well, imagine watching an Alien film, they show you an exciting scene, but then they show you like a Waylon Corporation meeting where they discuss different agendas and things they wish to accomplish. From time to time, they show you something that makes you think the film is about to take off, then you get to watch Ripley discussing things with her boyfriend who doesn't understand that there may be some sort of conspiracy. That is what this film does, it starts out with a bang, there are good scenes throughout the picture and the monsters look great! Unfortunately, they are too busy trying to show us all this fluff rather than the monsters attacking. So it ends up being a slow moving horror film with a few good scenes here and there to make you think about how much potential the film had and how good the premise was. 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. Flash to a photographer, who does not seem to like taking photos of any kind. I mean, the man doesn't really want to take journalistic photos nor does he apparently want to take fashion pictures. Well, he has taken pictures of people who are homeless and live underground in New York City. A police captain seems to be forced to withhold information regarding missing persons; however, his wife is one of the missing so he goes to a guy who runs a soup kitchen who has noticed that many of the homeless that he feeds have been turning up missing and many of those missing are among those who lives underground. Through all this we have some conspiracy stuff going on and occasionally we see a monster attack and just as it looks like the film is about to have an all out attack as the creatures attack a grill, we get more conspiracy stuff.
This film was a bit of success as people still talk about the C.H.U.D's today. I even remember it being featured on an episode of the Simpsons as one of the reasons Homer dislikes New York is the C.H.U.D's. It probably made its mark more due to the fact they did a really good advertising campaign than the film itself. The film itself as I have stated is kind of a bore for the most part, but I still remember the trailers showing the woman walking her dog being pulled into the sewer. Kind of like the Ghoulies, not a very good film, but it made money thanks to an ad campaign where they featured the creature popping out of the toilet. Another film that was a bit of a disappointment was Blood Beach, that once again had a really good ad campaign behind it. There is another film that is very similar to this one in terms of plot commonly known as Mutant. It was a bit better than this one, but it had the problem of being a very poorly lit film.
So, this one to me was a disappointment. I just think that if you make a fairly decent looking monster, you show it in action. These monsters are very above average in how they look so I am not sure why they decided to not show them much at all. The last scene of the film, they are not even featured at all, instead they focus on the conspiracy side of things. The film should of had more monsters and more monsters eating people, instead we get just a few scenes like this and a lot of stuff that seems like filler, and there is just way too much filler going on! I mean, the main character, the photographer almost seems pointless at times. Though, despite the fact I do not really consider this a good film, still better than the sequel!
The story, a woman is walking her dog and is pulled into the sewers by some monstrous looking arm. Flash to a photographer, who does not seem to like taking photos of any kind. I mean, the man doesn't really want to take journalistic photos nor does he apparently want to take fashion pictures. Well, he has taken pictures of people who are homeless and live underground in New York City. A police captain seems to be forced to withhold information regarding missing persons; however, his wife is one of the missing so he goes to a guy who runs a soup kitchen who has noticed that many of the homeless that he feeds have been turning up missing and many of those missing are among those who lives underground. Through all this we have some conspiracy stuff going on and occasionally we see a monster attack and just as it looks like the film is about to have an all out attack as the creatures attack a grill, we get more conspiracy stuff.
This film was a bit of success as people still talk about the C.H.U.D's today. I even remember it being featured on an episode of the Simpsons as one of the reasons Homer dislikes New York is the C.H.U.D's. It probably made its mark more due to the fact they did a really good advertising campaign than the film itself. The film itself as I have stated is kind of a bore for the most part, but I still remember the trailers showing the woman walking her dog being pulled into the sewer. Kind of like the Ghoulies, not a very good film, but it made money thanks to an ad campaign where they featured the creature popping out of the toilet. Another film that was a bit of a disappointment was Blood Beach, that once again had a really good ad campaign behind it. There is another film that is very similar to this one in terms of plot commonly known as Mutant. It was a bit better than this one, but it had the problem of being a very poorly lit film.
So, this one to me was a disappointment. I just think that if you make a fairly decent looking monster, you show it in action. These monsters are very above average in how they look so I am not sure why they decided to not show them much at all. The last scene of the film, they are not even featured at all, instead they focus on the conspiracy side of things. The film should of had more monsters and more monsters eating people, instead we get just a few scenes like this and a lot of stuff that seems like filler, and there is just way too much filler going on! I mean, the main character, the photographer almost seems pointless at times. Though, despite the fact I do not really consider this a good film, still better than the sequel!