The Pit aka Teddy (1981)
Oh. My. Dear. Lord. You know, sometimes a movie appears out of nowhere (at least nowhere I've ever heard of) and you feel... challenged to watch it. In this case, it was whoever was sadistic to put this piece of... cinema on YouTube, calling it, and I quote, "A sublime 80's weird beard horror gem." That, to me, is taking off the glove and calling for a challenge. I should have left well enough alone. Sublime? Not a chance. The year is right. I couldn't even begin to guess what weird beard means. Horror gem? HAH! Only if every other horror film on earth somehow simultaneously combusts. In other words, this was the ultimate of suck. A Canadian-production-made-in-Wisconsin kind of suck. There was so much suck you could vacuum a stadium with it.
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| You're great Teddy but you've got no boobs. |
Plot (I guess you could call it that): Jamie Benjamin (Canadian Sammy Snyder's first and let's hope last film role) is a misfit 12 year old boy, hated by both his classmates and the adults who live in his small town. When he encounters other people, they tease and ridicule him. His only friend is a stuffed bear named Teddy, with whom he regularly holds conversations. We hears Teddy's voice as he talks to Jamie and in the only truly creepy scene of this horrid movie we see Teddy's head turn as Jamie's babysitter leaves his room. But they go nowhere with that so...
Jamie becomes interested in girls but for some reason that is considered 'weird'. Why? Do you have to be 16 to want to see a boob? Or anything for that matter? Hmm, then I knew quite a few weirdos when I was growing up. Anywho, apparently his parents can't stand him either, and keep leaving him to go on extended business trips. Because of his peccadilloes, no babysitter will come back after one stay with him so they really have to search to find someone.
Jamie becomes interested in girls but for some reason that is considered 'weird'. Why? Do you have to be 16 to want to see a boob? Or anything for that matter? Hmm, then I knew quite a few weirdos when I was growing up. Anywho, apparently his parents can't stand him either, and keep leaving him to go on extended business trips. Because of his peccadilloes, no babysitter will come back after one stay with him so they really have to search to find someone.
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| THIS hole. THIS HOLE RIGHT HERE! HERE! HERE! |
Enter Sandy, a college student studying psychology (doesn't do her a bit of good here) with whom he immediately becomes infatuated. The first chance he gets he tries to get a look at her panties under the table. Again, I don't find that 'weird', just part of a boy growing into puberty. Oh well. I really can't stand him by this time already anyway because he has two expressions: Sulking and mad and sulking. And his voice is... boring. But then so is this movie so he actually fits right in. After an interminable amount of time showing how much people hate him, him talking to his Teddy (okay, now THAT'S weird), the Teddy talking back and his obsession with a large 'pit' that he thinks has monsters in it, we finally get to a part where he tells Sandy his secret (the pit). She doesn't believe him - big surprise.
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| Tra-la-logs sound great but can't sing. |
He reads up on the subject and decides that his pit creatures are Troglodytes, who he calls Tra-la-logs throughout the movie, extremely irritating. He tried feeding them chocolate but they hated it. His studies suggest they need meat (What the hell did they feed on for the untold years they've been in there anyway? The movie doesn't say and frankly, we don't care.). He spends his entire money stash on meat from the butcher and even steals cash from Sandy to feed his Tra.... his pets. Out of money, both he and Teddy decide there was only one more option: And I know you guessed it before you even finished the first paragraph. If you didn't, shame on you. They decide to feed all those who were mean and abusive toward Jamie to the... things. One by one he's somehow smart enough to lure these people who hate him into the forest, where no one sees this HUGE hole in the ground and walk right into it. Oh yes, that happens all the time in real life. Somewhere. Maybe only in Wisconsin.
He soon runs out of 'bad' people. Deciding his.. pets have to fend for themselves, he fashions a rope and attaches one end to a tree, throwing it down to the things so they can get out. And get out they do. And an interesting thing happens for the first time in the movie. Jamie disappears. Really. A good fifteen minutes go by in the movie without him, maybe longer 'cause I didn't care. It turns from a psycho killer boy to a pure low budget monster movie. For a while. The Tra... things aren't that bright so they jump right back in the hole, where a group of rednecks along with the sheriff's department pump them full of bullets. They then bulldoze the hole full so if they're not dead yet, they are now. They don't bother to check to see if they can find any evidence of the other missing people in the hole but... we just want this over. NOW.
Unfortunately... err I mean finally Jamie is back in the movie. This time his parents have shipped him off to grandpa and grandma (thanks guys) 'cause I guess they ran out of stupid girls willing to look after this little psycho. There he meets a girl his grandpa says will be his 'playmate'. She appears friendly and Jamie, totally whacko if he wasn't before, is happy she seems to like him and agrees to run after her into the woods. Where there is a big hole. "Oh no." he says, "They're Tra-la-logs." "I know." says the girl and pushes him in. It figures that the only laugh I get out of this whole thing is as the credits are rolling. But I think I was laughing more with relief than the comedy aspect. I truly, truly, TRULY was thankful this horrid thing was over.
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