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Film / The Pit

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"The Pit is the most bizarre contemporary reimagining of Dennis The Menace I've ever seen."
Jay Bauman, Best of the Worst

The Pit is a 1981 Canadian Horror comedy film.

Jamie Benjamin is a 12-year-old outcast. One day, while playing in the woods, he discovers a pit filled with monsters. He befriends the monsters, whom he calls "tro-lo-logs," and decides to feed them his tormentors.


This film contains examples of:

  • Ambiguously Evil: It's unclear if the tro-lo-logs are malicious in their people-eating or just hungry animals.
  • And Now for Someone Completely Different: The final half hour leaves Jamie's perspective to follow the police and local militia hunting down the tro-lo-logs. It returns back to Jamie to feature his Karmic Death.
  • Asshole Victim: Of the tro-lo-logs' victims fed by Jamie, Abergail, Freddy and his girlfriend Christina deserve it easily the most for tormenting him (and laughing at him getting punched, in Christina's case).
  • Bait the Dog: Abergail feigns remorse for yelling at Jamie earlier on and lets him use her bicycle. Turns out she had it disassembled so he'd fall down and get hurt on a single try, much to her amusement.
  • Big Bad: Jamie Benjamin, a Creepy Child who feeds people to monsters in a pit.
  • Bully Hunter: Jamie tricks popular club leader Freddy Phelps into getting fed to the tro-lo-logs. Freddy's girlfriend Christina attempts to flee but ends up with the same fate.
  • Death by Irony: Jamie. He spent most of the movie feeding his tormentors to the tro-lo-logs, only for him to be fed to another pit of them by his new “playmate”.
  • Dirty Kid: No doubt because of his inability to socialize with his peers and being at a pubescent age, he expresses lust for his caretaker Sandy in rather concerning ways, up to and including writing a love message on the bathroom mirror while she was showering.
  • Downer Ending: The tro-lo-logs are killed, and Jamie moves to his grandparents after having pulled a Heel–Face Turn. He even has a playmate. Said playmate shows him a pit of tro-lo-logs she found, and she pushes him in.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Jamie was perfectly willing to let anyone who wronged him end up as meals for the tro-lo-logs but when Sandy accidentally falls into the pit, he tries (but ultimately fails) to save her. As a result, he is uncharacteristically distraught and wracked with guilt over the incident and stops feeding the tro-lo-logs afterwards.
  • Karma Houdini: Subverted. It’s never discovered that Jamie fed most of the victims to the tro-lo-logs, and he goes to live with his grandparents... but then his new playmate feeds him to her own pit of tro-lo-logs.
  • Kids Are Cruel: Abergail openly belittles Jamie for being a social outcast, even after her aunt reprimands her for doing so multiple times. Needless to say, she is the first to be eaten by the tro-lo-logs.
  • Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: The nature of Teddy is left unresolved. The only thing preventing Teddy from being part of Jamie's imagination is a single scene, where Teddy visibly moves on its own.
  • The Place
  • Villain Protagonist: Jamie is a young outcast boy who feeds his tormentors to monsters in the woods.

Alternative Title(s): Teddy

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