People Under The Stairs
Experimentation within the horror genre is NOT something that you wind up seeing quite as often as you would think, as once a specific formula is laid out for a certain âtypeâ of horror film (slasher, ghost story, etc.), most run of the mill horror filmmakers tend to stick to the given formula ad nauseum. But then again, Wes Craven wasnât your run of the mill horror director, and a LOT of novel concepts that would have been laughed off by most studios coming from an average Joe horror guy were things that only he could get greenlighted. In the case of this 1991 release (easily among his most underrated films), Craven first made the decision to make a more urban based, ghetto style horror story (actually rarer than you think even today), then infused it with some social commentary and metaphors concerning the rich and privileged being so sick and decadent that not only do they delight in keeping the poor down, but also in that they think that they can literally do ANYTHING that they want, up to and including brutally victimizing others. Add to on top of that the amazing yet clearly evident fairy tale aspects of the whole affair (and some would even say biblical) of having a lone knight hero be able to penetrate the castle of an evil king and queen and manage to liberate all the poor trapped souls imprisoned inside, and in doing so also set free all of the poor and defenseless ones on the outside that are beholden to their lords and masters, and even more astoundingly have Craven accomplish all of this by using in his lead heroic role an underage African American male child, which is not just rarely seen in horror films but in most films in general. Brandon Adams (best known to many as the token black kid on the teams in both The Mighty Ducks films as well as The Sandlot) stars as Fool, an earnest young kid living in the ghetto (who has pipe dreams of attending medical school and becoming a doctor) with his multiple single mom sister (whom it is implied has done a little escorting on the side to help make ends meet) and very sickly mother, all of whom have just learned that they are being evicted from their shithole tenement building for being three days late on the rent by their heartless landlords. Enter the sisterâs shifty, abusive, âspecial friendâ Leroy (Ving Rhames, a nobody at this point who would blow up huge come 1994 and Pulp Fiction), who makes the kid a proposal: Get some deserved payback from the bastard landlords by going to their house (which Rhames has just stumbled across the address for), taking part in a burglary, and making off with some invaluable gold coins said to be in their possession which would help pay for the rent and probably a few other things as well, which leads to Fool, Rhames, and a third (white) accomplice heading over there to do the robbery only to find themselves in WAY over their heads. Itâs obvious here that Craven took great pains in order to develop the villains of the piece, undoubtedly two of the most depraved HUMAN monsters in the history of horror cinema, a supposedly married, rich, white, racist couple who are actually brother and sister(!) and engaged in a incestuous relationship who are billed in the credits as âManâ and âWomanâ when really they usually are seen calling each other âMommyâ and âDaddyâ! Add to that a completely warped and depraved âBible Thumperâ attitude (anyone that offends them are told that they can âburn in Hellâ), along with a habit (since they might be reluctant to have children themselves with them being brother and sister) of being âbaby snatchersâ, kidnapping infants to raise as their own, and when the upbringing goes bad, cutting out their tongues (so they donât talk anymore) and tossing them into the dungeon that they have underneath the basement (hence the title). And as played by Everett McGill and Wendy Robie (who also played a married couple on the cult TV show Twin Peaks), they manage to go above and beyond in bringing a psychotic, menacing nature to what are admittedly simplistically written roles, giving even the most basic lines of dialogue a completely twisted vibe, especially when dealing with their latest âchildâ (A.J. Langer), whom they happily abuse and psychologically torture in a maniacally strict, religious fashion. When Fool finds himself being the last one left from his little crew, it soon becomes hunting season in their happy little home for both he and longtime house refugee Roach (Sean Whalen), whom Daddy has been hunting between the walls for a long time, first from an especially vicious dog and then from Daddy himself wearing an all leather S&M outfit just blasting holes through the walls with complete and utter abandon, and after setting up the basic premise in the opening 30 to 40 minutes, Craven sets the film on a rollercoaster, breakneck pace for nearly the entire last hour, having Fool form both an alliance with the young, traumatized girl as well as the crazy looking scavenger as well as encountering the other imprisoned, deformed celler dwellers (who are not above cannibalism) all while avoiding the psycho patriarch and his equally grotesque, uh, female companion. Craven manages to incorporate some genuinely disgusting moments and scenes with some off kilter laughs (mostly from just how batshit crazy the two main villains really are) to go along with the insanely fast pacing as well. In the end, it would appear that Foolâs greatest assets are neither his size nor his strength (being a little kid and all) but rather his innate refusal to ever cower or show any fear when finding himself facing off against pure evil (especially an evil that would corner him and never expect a little kid to give him a hard shot to the balls), as what starts off as a (poorly decided) burglary turns quickly instead into setting free those whom metaphorically speaking have been kept in the dark about what the actual, outside world is really all about, along with the poor, huddled, masses on the outside who suffer while the wealthy yet decadent overlords who profit off of their misery live a safe, insulated lifestyle while never allowing any others to ever come or go from the house (the two burglars who had come with Fool are clearly implied to not be the only interlopers whom Mommy and Daddy had killed in the past). Not to mention the absolutely HUGE money pit that they keep in their house (more cash than you can imagine) that seems to be from the accumulation of several lifetimes of plundering the lower class types in order to build a fortune so to be able to afford doing whatever sick, mind blowingly evil acts that you can think of within society with absolutely no repercussions or accountability whatsoever. Itâs amazing to see that even today in the post-Obama era in many ways there is little that has changed in the supposed âdo what you can when you poor in the ghettoâ mentality (except maybe the integration of more, poor white kids into the mix) and that the class welfare structure yet still remains the same. The Mommy and Daddy characters (while maybe a gross exaggeration in terms of their literal depravity) still represent the so called âone percenterâ types that have always preyed upon the other 99% and no doubt will continue to do so because of the merry go round nature of our own political scene where candidates compete to see just who will be installed as the next puppet type to sit in The White House. Obviously Craven made a magnificent effort to pack all this and more in here with a film that never truly gets boring and never runs out of steam despite an obvious smattering of plot holes and some true bits of sickingly gross inspiration (like implying that the sexually repressed Daddy has a bit of a thing for his adopted little girl despite his religious âconvictionsâ), but overall Craven did indeed experiment here and he succeeded magnificently on all fronts, including the aforementioned dark fairy tale aspect of having the hero conquering the castle, saving the princess, and thus freeing his own people. It takes a true artist to bring all of these elements together and to make them all work (along with having plenty of blood and guts), but if there ever was a true artist among hacks in the storied history of horror cinema, then it was indeed the late, great Wes CravenâŚ
9/10