Oh, The Horror! #17: The People Under the Stairs

Huh. Another Wes Craven movie that I had a great time watching. I guess I should look more into his stuff. I mean, I know he's a horror legend but previously I've only seen the Scream franchise (the first one was the only one I really liked as a kid) and Nightmare on Elm Street which I watched recently and really could get into. But my same god bro, Rony, who introduced me to The Serpent and the Rainbow, presented this one to me and my brother and I had good fun watching it. One thing that really made it a fun was just how original and rather outlandish the characters and ideas were but made it even creepier in a way that you can actually see it happening. The world is a scary world we live in. And the thought that crap like this can happen despite the absurdity is just... wow.

But yes, the movie is about a young boy, nicked-named Fool, from the ghettos of his city who finds out that he is being evicted by his money hungry landlords while his mother is sick and bed-ridden of cancer. His older sister is dating a man named Leroy who comes up with an idea to go into the landlords house and steal some money. The problem is that they do not know is that the landlords are crazy and seem to have "children" that they lock up in the basement who are all deformed due to their punishment. Some have gorged eyes, cut off ears, etc. All look like weird pale monsters and are fed pieces of meat from people who pass by. They also have a young daughter who is very pure and innocent but is punished by her "parents" due to their impossible standards of purity. If she speaks, hears, or sees evil, then she is damned to hell. The "parents"/antagonists are damn CRAZY! The father runs around in BDSM gear shooting the walls with his shotgun in hope of killing Roach, a child who runs inbetween the walls, while the mother is as over the top and insane shouting as she holds up a knife yelling, "Go to hell!"

So now Fool and Leroy are trapped in this house where it's literally built as if it were a prison. Locks everywhere with traps while being hunted down by a large hungry rottweiler. It's a crazy cat and mouse game that just puts you at the edge of your seat and has you cheering, afraid, and laughing your butt off. This is definitely a movie I would recommend and not have originally watched. So I guess I'm saying don't pass it down. Also, I found out a remake of this may be coming out. I'm not too sure how I feel about that as I feel this movie should be it. A remake would certainly not be able to recapture the weird charm of this entertaining flick. So yes, good fun weird film.