Blu-ray Review: C.H.U.D. [Special Edition]

If/when aliens land on Earth and demand to know what horror films best represent the 1980s (priorities, people), it is our duty as a society to show them C.H.U.D. It’s not one of the best horror movies of that decade—I don’t think it even cracks the top 50—but it is so prototypically ’80s in both its construction and the fears it suggests that it is an essential part of the genre’s fabric from that time period. Not bad for some Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers.

Think about it: in C.H.U.D., we have a low-budget, scuzzy horror movie shot in New York. We have a creature feature that uses slime-covered monsters with glowing eyes and dripping fangs. We have a horror movie that addresses both the epidemic of homelessness and the fears of toxic waste; put them both together and you get C.H.U.D.! There is a subplot set in the fashion world, meaning there are montages of John Heard’s photographer character shooting pics of his fashion model girlfriend (Kim Greist). There is a dangerous bureaucracy and a cop (Christopher Curry) who plays by his own rules, while Daniel Stern runs a soup kitchen in a stained sweatshirt. We have gratuitous nudity and gratuitous gore. It’s like every ’80s horror movie rolled up into one.

My childhood memories of C.H.U.D. are that the movie seems a lot more thrilling than it really is. Like a lot of low-budget horror movies—especially those that are politically-minded and issues-driven—C.H.U.D. is mostly talky, with its titular monsters only appearing as often as the budget would allow. While many horror fans might contend that the creatures haven’t aged well—they were somewhat cheap-looking back in 1984, so imagine how they appear in 2016—I still think they work. Director Douglas Cheek is canny about the way he shoots them, reserving the close-ups of the monster heads for the money shots. They’re smartly used, but not used enough. Like so many other eco-horror movies, there’s a whole lot of screen time devoted to characters uncovering a vast conspiracy. It’s not terribly compelling, but at least it’s Daniel Stern and John Heard (a Home Alone prequel!) doing the uncovering.

On a recent episode of the Shock Waves podcast, Ryan Turek of Blumhouse pointed out that C.H.U.D. is, in many ways, just like a Larry Cohen movie, from its paranoid thematic concerns to its prominent New York setting and locations. The comparison had never occurred to me before, but it’s pretty apt. The major difference between this movie and a Cohen joint is that C.H.U.D. is missing the sly, subversive sense of humor and eccentric characterizations that mark Cohen’s movies. This is more like a Larry Cohen movie played totally straight.

It’s fitting that a movie about homeless people set in New York City in the 1980s would be covered in four layers of dirt, a fact made even more obvious by Arrow’s new Blu-ray. The new 2K scan brings the movie back to all its grungy glory: the 1080p transfer offers somewhat muted colors (true to the source), with the level of detail revealing every stained shirt, every smear of slime and dirt and grossness that covers every inch of the movie. The original commentary with actors John Heard, Daniel Stern, Christopher Curry, writer Shep Abbott and director Douglas Cheek has been carried over to this release, alongside a new commentary interview with composers David Hughes and Martin Cooper moderated by Michael Felsher of Red Shirt Pictures. That conversation lasts only about 30 minutes, at which point the track gives over to the isolated score.

Also included on the first disc are some new interview featurettes with production designer William Bilowit and creature designer John Caglione Jr., plus a piece in which horror writer Michael Gingold and director Ted Geoghegan visit some of the NYC locations. Rounding out the supplemental section is a gallery of behind-the-scenes photos, the original trailer, and an “extended shower scene,” which is almost identical to the sequence that appears in the movie.

The good news is that Arrow’s Blu-ray contains two different cuts of C.H.U.D. The first is the longer, preferred director’s cut (billed as the “integral cut”) that reinstates about ten minutes and shifts a couple of things around. The second, also appearing in 1080p HD (but exclusive to this special edition release), is the TV edit. This is not good news because the TV edit is particularly effective—it’s an inferior film to the longer cut—but because it puts my worried mind at ease after many years. I grew up watching C.H.U.D. on cable and distinctly remember the last scene in the movie being the diner attack with John Goodman and Jay Thomas playing cops, but revisiting the longer cut of the movie a few years ago on Anchor Bay’s DVD, I thought my memory was completely faulty when that scene appeared about two-thirds of the way through. At least I now know I wasn’t remembering the movie wrong; it’s just that there are two different versions. Now I can finally sleep at night.

C.H.U.D. is hardly a great horror film, but it’s one for which I will forever have a fondness, both because I saw it so many times growing up and because it represents such a specific period in ’80s horror. It’s part impassioned political statement, part gory monster movie, part 42nd Street exploitation trash, all elevated by good actors and a total commitment to the premise. It represents much of what horror movies were trying to do in the ’80s, and while it’s far from perfect, it will always be better than C.H.U.D. II: Bud the C.H.U.D.

Movie Score: 3/5, Disc Score: 3.5/5