Brett Leonard | Through the Shattered Lens

The 1992 horror/sci-fi hybrid, The Lawnmower Man, tells the story of two men.

Dr. Lawrence Angelo (played by Pierce Brosnan) is a scientist who is experimenting with ways to make less intellectually inclined people smarter. Dr. Angelo is kind of a burn out. You can tell he has issues because he needs to shave, he’s always sitting in the dark, and he’s never without a cigarette. You look at Dr. Angelo and you just imagine that he smells like smoke, bourbon, and lost dreams.

Jobe (Jeff Fahey) is the kind-hearted but intellectually disabled man who lives in a shack and spends his time mowing everyone’s lawn. Hence, he’s known as the …. wait for it …. THE LAWNMOWER MAN!

Together, Dr. Angelo and Jobe solve crimes!

No, not really. Instead, Dr. Angelo decides to experiment on Jobe. This leads to Jobe not only becoming smarter but also quicker to anger. Soon, Jobe is developing psychic abilities. He can move things with his mind. He can magically set people on fire. Basically, he can do whatever the script needs for him to do at the moment. Jobe is soon tormenting everyone who once bullied him. Father McKeen, the pervy priest, gets set on fire. Jake, the gas station attendant, is put into a catatonic state. An abusive father get run over by a lawnmower.

Dr. Angelo knows that Jobe is out-of-control and that the experiment has to be reversed. However, the sinister group behind Angelo’s research wants to use Jobe as a weapon because …. well, because they’re evil and that’s what evil people did back in 1992. Jobe, however, has other plans. He wants to become pure energy so that he can rule over a virtual world….

Or something like that. To be honest, it’s kind of difficult to really figure out what’s going on in The Lawnmower Man. The movie shares its name with a Stephen King short story but it has so little in common with its source material that King reportedly sued to get his name taken out of the credits. (Considering some of the films that King has allowed himself to be associated with, this is kind of amazing.) The film tries to be a satire, a slasher film, a conspiracy film, and a technology-gone-crazy film all in one and the end result is one big mess.

Along with all of that, The Lawnmower Man is also a time capsule of when it was made. A good deal of the film takes place in Jobe’s virtual reality universe, which looks a lot like a mix of Doom and Second Life. I imagine the film’s special effects may have seen impressive way back in the 20th Century but, seen today, they’re rather cartoonish, if occasionally charmingly retro.

On the plus side, the film does have an interesting cast. Pierce Brosnan is never convincing as burn-out but he tries so hard that he’s still fun to watch. Underrated actors like Jenny Wright, Geoffrey Lewis, Dean Norris, and Troy Evans all get a chance to show what they can do in minor roles. Finally, you’ve got the great Jeff Fahey, giving a far better performance than the script perhaps deserves. Though the film may be a mess, there’s something undeniably fun watching Jeff Fahey’s Jobe go from being meek to being a megalomaniac.

It’s a silly film and not one that’s meant to be watched alone. This is a film that has to be watched with a group of your snarkiest friends. Watch it the next time you’re looking for an excuse to avoid doing the yard work.

Let me set up the scene for you:

It’s late at night. A woman wakes up from a terrible nightmare and finds herself in a shadowy, white-walled hospital room. She gets out of bed and walks over to the window. Standing outside, staring up at her, is a lone figure in blood-stained surgical scrubs. The figure’s eyes glow red as he says, “Around here, I’m the head surgeon.”

And then he tosses some poor orderly’s decapitated head up at the window.

If you enjoy the type of silly but effective creepiness that is epitomized by this scene, than 1989’s The Dead Pit might just be the film for you.

In The Dead Pit, Cheryl Lawson plays Jane Doe. As you might guess from her name, Jane isn’t quite sure who she really is or how she came to lose her memory. All she knows for sure is that she’s been checked into a disturbingly sterile hospital. At night, she’s haunted by nightmares in which she’s stalked by a menacing figure wearing a doctor’s mask and during the day, she has to deal with the occasional earthquake and the fact that she occasionally starts to speak in a vaguely possessed voice that freaks out the head psychiatrist (Jeremy Slate). Could it have anything to do with the fact that one of her fellow patients is an ex-nun who is obsessed with sprinkling holy water over everything? Or could it possibly be related to the fact that many years ago, her psychiatrist murdered Dr. Ramzi (Danny Gochnauer) when he discovered that Ramzi was actually a serial killer who murdered countless patients? Then again, it could just be related to the fact that there’s apparently a hundred freaking zombies just wandering around the hospital…

If The Dead Pit sounds like it’s kinda silly and a little bit campy … well, it is. However, it’s also a lot of fun, the type of unapologetically trashy horror film that makes for perfect Halloween viewing. Director Brett Leonard makes good use of what appears to be a very small budget. The film was apparently shot on the grounds of an actual mental hospital and, through the use of inventive lighting and a constantly tracking camera, Leonard makes good use of the locale’s inherent creepiness. This is yet another film that works far better than you might expect, simply because the director understood just how scary it can be to feel isolated.

Just from doing a quick google search, I can also say that apparently, this film — and, specifically, Cheryl Lawson’s lead performance in this film — has a lot of fans on the Internet. I can understand that because Lawson’s likable, she’s believable when she’s both scared and possessed, and she screams with panache. She makes this film effective because she takes the material seriously and has enough respect for the audience to actually give a good performance and that makes it impossible not to 1) identify with her and 2) hope that she makes it through the film in one piece. Even when Lawson is having to scream for her life, she never allows Jane Doe to come across as weak. Speaking as a girl who loves horror films but hates to always see women having to act like simple-minded victims, I found Lawson’s performance to be almost empowering and I’m sure that’s why so many of The Dead Pit’s fans love this movie.

Of course, Cheryl Lawson also spends almost the entire movie running around in her panties and a t-shirt. I guess that also could possibly have something to do with the film’s popularity…

Okay, I guess that is a more likely explanation. However, in all honesty, if I was in a horror movie, I would totally want to be the girl who spends the whole movie running around in her underwear. I mean, yes, I know that it’s the good girls who always survive until the end but seriously who wants to be a good girl in a horror movie? The good girls are boring and usually end up forgotten by the time the sequel comes out. The bad girls are the ones that everyone remembers.

But, regardless of the main reason why you personally might enjoy it, the Dead Pit is a fun movie that’s a great pick if you’re like me and you often find yourself simply looking for something to watch at 2 in the morning.