An avid horror fan this one has somehow evaded me since 1989, until I picked up a copy on VHS. Set in a mental institution (always a good location for horror movies) The Dead Pit delivers zombies, a crazed, evil doctor, a buxom heroine, lots of gore, some laughs (some possibly unintentionally?) and a very good use of colours (blue, green and red) 1980's style. This is a B-movie so expect some cardboard acting (Stephen Gregory Foster in particular),and some of the special effects/make up looks a bit cheap, it is also perhaps a tad long, but it is fun, perhaps best watched with a few beers.

This is not going to be a surprise, but here we have yet another horror movie that had potential, but in the end just cannot deliver all the goods. It has a semi decent story, but there are to many plot holes and unanswered questions. There are zombies in the movie, however, for the most part they are confined to the end. The movie also feels longer than its hour and a half runtime. I mean I just watched the movie "Inferno" and according to its runtime it is over ten minutes longer, but it felt a lot shorter. To the story, it starts out with a confrontation between two doctors at the dead pit of the title. One of the doctors is a tad insane and seemingly doing random experiments with the patients at this insane asylum. Well the one doctor shoots this doctor and instead of reporting the happenings to the authorities he seals the now dead crazy doctor in the basement of this building and you are thinking "why didn't he go to the police"? Because if he did there would not be much of a movie now would there silly. Flash years later and the place is running again and a new patient who is calling herself Jane Doe because of memory loss seems to spark a return of our good doctor from the basement. He is soon out beginning his experiments again with his sights set on revenge of the man who killed him. So that is how the movie progresses, for a bit there I was worried there would not be much time for the zombie attack at the end and that it would be just a small pointless scene, however, I just think the rest of the movie dragged to much because the zombie scene at the end is a bit good. On the whole if this movie was just paced better and they got to the zombies quicker it would have been better, but as it is it is a not all that bad, not all that good movie.

I happened to fall over "The Dead Pit" in a secondhand store that deals in movies and music close to where I live, and the zombie on the DVD cover made me curious, so I picked it up, being a zombie aficionado, of course I had to.

And as I came home and watched this, I was not at all amused or entertained in the least. This movie, despite being from 1989 (not that there is anything wrong with old movies),just failed to scare or entertain in any possible way. And I do think that even back in 1989, this movie wouldn't have been considered anything even remotely to being scary.

I was hoping to see more zombies, but ended up with a doctor who was shot in the head, then returned from the dead with these wonderfully red glowing eyes, and a pit full of "zombies" - who were essentially just regular people with really bad make-up jobs.

The storyline was fairly straight forward, and fairly average for a horror movie from that particular time of age. If you, like me, have grown up watching horror movies in the 80's, then you will know exactly what I mean - as this is the essence of late 80's horror movie. I am regarding this in the sense of plot, execution and characters.

You might find some enjoyment in the movie if you are a fan of Jeremy Slate or Cheryl Lawson - providing you even know who these people are to begin with.

For a zombie movie, then "The Dead Pit" is a massive disappointment, and you'd best stay clear of this unless you have absolutely nothing else to watch. There are far better horror movies from the late 80's that surpass this movie by a mile and beyond.