C.H.U.D.

It's amazing that I've gone 40 years without seeing this cinematic staple of my generation (this is what you miss when you didn't have cable TV growing up). The MVP here is Bonnie Timmermann, the young casting director who was still just starting out but had Trading Places under her belt and was just about to start assembling the casts for Miami Vice. The future producer and casting director extraordinaire populates this silly low-budget gorefest with one of the most overqualified casts of the 1980s. John Heard (Between the Lines, Chilly Scenes of Winter, Cutter's Way, and Cat People) stars as a former New York fashion photographer who has left the advertising world to photograph the city's growing homeless population. A pre-Brazil, pre-Manhunter Kim Greist makes her screen debut as Heard's fashion model girlfriend. Their romantic plot shares seemingly disconnected screen time with the story of a police officer, played by another promising newcomer, Christopher Curry, who teams up with a homeless shelter manager, played by Daniel Stern (Breaking Away, Diner, Blue Thunder), to investigate a series of disappearances. They soon learn that the missing people have been killed by (or devolved into) cannibalistic humanoid monsters that live in the city sewers. The two stories come together when these monsters start venturing above ground. In addition to the impressive leads, the film features Frankie Faison, Sam McMurray, John Goodman, and Jay Thomas (also making his film debut).

Director Douglas Cheek, known primarily as an editor for American Playhouse and cheezy made-for-TV specials like FOX's iconic 1995 conspiracy investigation Alien Autopsy: (Fact or Fiction?), directed only two films: C.H.U.D. and, nineteen years later, Empires: Peter & Paul and the Christian Revolution, a PBS documentary about the lives of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. I'd laugh, but my own accomplishments would look far less impressive when reduced to an IMDB list. Whatever whimsical qualities the surprisingly slow-paced C.H.U.D. possesses, it's notable as one of the first movies to capitalize on societal fears about the unhoused and the government's ineffective efforts to address the growing issue. It's far from a serious political film, and I'm not sure how effective it is as a horror movie since it's so damn goofy. But it would make a great double feature with Street Trash.