The Dead Pit 4K 1989 Ultra HD 2160p

Story Movie

Dr. Remzi conducted inhuman experiments with patients of a psychiatric clinic, for which he was killed by his colleague Dr. Swan in his underground laboratory. Twenty years later, a girl named Jane finds herself in the same clinic. She is not crazy, just her memory has failed. In the clinic the girl begins to have nightmares and visions, but this is only the beginning of the horror in which she will plunge. Dr. Ramsey is back! And he came back not empty-handed, but with his favorite tools and a whole crowd of his regular patients...

Review 4K Movie

A remarkable and original zombie horror from the director of "The Lawnmower Man" by Stephen King and "Sanctuary" by Dean Koontz, which, by the way, was his debut in big movies. This obviously cheap, but angry horror from the late eighties is able to interest the sophisticated fan of the genre with its very specific vision of the very clichés of movies about reanimated corpses, hunting for human flesh. Walking kadavras in Leonard's vision is called by black magic evil force, which can be stopped only with the help of holy water (I suspect that Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez saw the idea of throwing the evil force filled with sanctified water balls here), released directly into the forehead of a bullet, flesh-eating killers can only slow down for a while.

The plot of the movie also deserves special attention: it's not just another silly meat movie of the walking dead, there is an intricate detective in the picture, which will gradually reveal to the viewer a variety of plot twists, surprisingly logically combined with each other in the overall script structure. Everything begins quite typically for a genre sample of such tailoring: we are shown the events that took place many years before the main chronological line of the narrative, where the plot begins. Then, moving to the main chronological line, the authors lead the viewer through the narrative in a measured and smooth manner. We must give credit to Leonard, in addition to directing the movie, who also wrote the screenplay. He managed to go beyond the narrow limits of the annoying template "zombies, revived for inexplicable reasons, eat everyone around", we expect a very logical and competent plot, which will subsequently lead the viewer to the expected denouement, while carefully avoiding the piano in the bushes and taking out of nowhere plot twists.

The role of the movie's protagonist, haunted by hazy nightmares of the past in the depths of a mental institution, is quite similar to that of Kirsty from the second "Hellraiser", and the amnesia touch used only adds interest to the character. And the ending safely goes beyond the predictable clichés, making the viewer thank Brett Leonard for his courage and imagination. In terms of directing, Leonard has also done well. Despite the tiny budget, visually "The Well of Death" looks very elaborate and retouched, the cameraman and lighting technician diligently copy the style of the famous Mario Bava: the shooting takes place from a "three-dimensional" perspective, which makes the film look more expensive than it is, and the cold blue-green otherworldly lighting, together with the hospital scenery, gives a hellish flavor to what is happening.

In addition, the director, as for a debut quite well shows his ability to build up tension and keep the viewer's interest during the course of almost the entire viewing. Many novice horrormakers with their penny budgets clearly need to learn from this movie (I sincerely recommend the authors of "Phobos", "The Shithouse" and other "S. S. С. D") how to create interesting and atmospheric genre works for a small amount of money, which later will not be ashamed to boast to rich producers, hoping to get more finances from the latter to create more ambitious projects. On the graphic violence front, the creators also did their best: a lot of ketchup and fake (or maybe real, pig) entrails were spent on the set. Arms and legs are torn off, stomachs are ripped open, intestines are taken out of them, corpses themselves are melted in great detail by contact with holy water, and the scene of lobotomy without anesthesia is so good!

The most favorable impression is made by the leader of cadavers: it's not just a brainless zombie meat-eater, it's a cruel maniac-psychopath, naturalistically dismembering his victims with the help of various medical instruments, who is not afraid to perform various operations on his subjects without anesthesia. However, the appearance itself is a little bit off: if the bulk of zombies have good and realistic makeup, then Dr. Ramsey's white skin (well, there is no way a corpse rotting for 15 years in a damp underground cave can look like that) and cartoonish red eyes are more likely to cause fascination than horror. A slightly negative impression is made by the editing of the movie: it is either slow, or on the contrary abrupt and indecipherable. In this respect, only the final scene is good, in which the viewer is presented with two parallel time lines, with the same characters. The final scene of the hospital flooding is quite cheesy, could it not have been done in any other way, why did you have to use such cheesy toy mock-ups? I understand that the small budget of the movie did not allow the creators to lose seriously with spectacle, but it would have been better if they had done without the water pump crash, and would have come up with something less pretentious. Musical accompaniment also leaves much to be desired, there is practically no supercharging music (and after all, how many scenes in the movie are suitable for this), sometimes very low piano chords are played, and that only in the sharpest moments, in the rest of the time we have to be satisfied with a rather "quiet" picture.

As a result: "The Well of Death" makes an exceptionally positive impression as a horror, but as a movie in general, Leonard's creation is not too well thought out. It's either the tiny budget or the lack of normal experience of the director, although I think that some uncertainty of the authors about how to present this or that scene to the viewer, as well as nervous tension, obviously experienced by the director because of the lack of money (the plot and presentation clearly show that the authors clearly claimed for something more than what they got). At the same time, if you like dark, creepy and dystopian genre tapes, where there is no place for snotty love lines and sugary happy endings, "The Well of Death" will be a worthy addition to your collection of horror films.