• Directed by Douglas Cheek
• Written by Parnell Hall
• Starring
  • John Heard
  • Daniel Stern
  • Christopher Curry
  • Kim Greist

More than anything else, this film (the only directorial credit for Douglas Cheek and writer Parnell Hall) reminds me of something Larry Cohen would make: diverse, realistic characters, speaking spontaneous-sounding dialogue in an authentic urban setting (that’s “urban” in the original sense, not the new “hip-hop” meaning), confronting something totally bizarre.

Said characters include George Cooper (John Heard) a fashion photographer with a strong “relevant” streak; in the aftermath of an award-winning photo-essay on the homeless, he’s moved to a loft in Soho with live-in model Lauren (Kim Griest) with a panoramic view of the homeless wandering around. Apparently he’s gained their trust, so that when one elderly woman is hauled in for trying to lift a cop’s firearm, he’s the one she spends her dime on. Now, what would a homeless person want a gun for…?

Also a main character is Captain Bosch (Christopher Curry), whose precinct covers the ten-block neighborhood which is seeing a spate of sudden disappearances, disappearances he is being ordered by the Chief (Eddie “Pa Kent” Jones) to keep quiet — even though Bosch’s own wife is one of them. (Her disappearance forms a fine pre-credits teaser, although any woman who walks a dog alone in the middle of the night in such a less-than-fine neighborhood is just asking to be removed from the gene pool.) Although his moustache makes him look like an imperious square, Bosch proves that he’s got his heart in the right place: His job is to protect everyone in his precinct, whether or not they have a consistent mailing address.

Rounding out our main characters is A.J. (Daniel Stern, looking even dirtier and uglier than usual), a former hood turned Reverend who now runs the neighborhood soup kitchen. He’s filed a missing persons report with Bosch because about a dozen of his regulars suddenly disappeared — the dozen that he knows live in the abandoned sewer system.

From the disappearance, the rantings of some of the more incoherent underground denizens, and the mysterious radiation equipment discovered underground (supposedly from an “ordinary” EPA probe), the conclusion is reached that there’s some kind of radioactive contaminant in the sewers, one that may be causing mutations. Archetypal bureaucrat Wilson (George Martin) of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission dubs it a C.H.U.D. — a Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller — and swears that there could only be one of them… what are the odds such a mutation could happen repeatedly?

What, indeed?

There are many things to like about this movie. The characters are well drawn; none of the top three are “heroes” by conventional characterization, but all three have a very low bullshit threshold. The setting is well-rendered, with the homeless shown in all their realistic detail. (I first saw this during the broadcast run of Beauty and the Beast, and the contrast between that fantasy underground and this movie’s grimy hellhole was eye-opening.) There’s a real social conscience here, understated but present, which doesn’t allow us to dismiss endangered homeless as simply a plot device.

Too bad the conscience takes a back seat once the mutants start attacking for real.

You could even go so far as to say that the C.H.U.D.s are the movie’s weak point. They’re stereotypical monsters, driven by the generic need to be meanies. Their appearance is technically adequate, but not terribly convincing; their clawed hands come right off the rack, their glowing eyes would make it impossible to see, they have no noses (that’s right, radiation makes your nose fall off), and we’re usually introduced to them by a close-up of their fanged mouths — close enough to say, “Oowee, look! Painted latex!”

And I don’t feel at all bad about criticizing the science behind them. After all, the rest of the movie goes to such lengths to set up the absolute realism of this movie, that this is a glaring defect. Even assuming that simple radiation leads to hideous mutations (instead of, say, radiation poisoning and simple death), why would it mutate all of these bums the exact same way — giving them bull necks, glowing eyes, and no noses? And why would the bite of a C.H.U.D. infect another person with the same mutations? Unless we postulate some other mutagenic contaminant in with the radioactive sludge — a DNA virus, or something else imported from the Marvel Universe — it makes no sense.

Putting that aside, it’s still a worthwhile movie. It surprises me that it wasn’t a stepping stone for the writer and director on to bigger projects — or any further projects at all. Apparently the only thing ever to result from C.H.U.D. is the universally reviled tongue-in-cheek sequel, C.H.U.D. 2: Bud the Chud (1989). And that’s a mutation more tragic than any shown herein.

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 16 (plus 1 dog)
• breasts: 0
• explosions: 1
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• Talking Heads references: 1
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek: 2
  • Christopher Curry (Bosch) played an automobile driver in an episode of Voyager
  • Ivar Brogger (credited as “the gooney NRC man”) showed up on Voyager as a character I don’t remember in an episode I don’t remember seeing