 |
People Under The
Stairs, The |
|
|
  |
| Use the darkbrown scrollbar to the right to scroll down for the review. |
13-year-old Fool discovers that his family, with a sick
mom, is about to be evicted from their apartment. Fool's
sister's boyfriend Leroy suggests that they break into
their rich landlord couple's apartment to steal some
rare, valuable gold coins. Little do they realize that
their landlords are two sadistic maniacs who capture
and torture teens in their basement.
One of our masters of horror, Wes Craven, delivers a
modern update of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and his
own The Hills Have Eyes put in the suburbia, like most
of Craven's films. For a change, this isn't just a
horror film but a movie with a social message, about
the rich over-class exploiting the poor. Unfortunately
the message is drained away in a tale of terror.
The film starts out intriguing. The house is really
scary and you really want to know what's inside, but
still not. The landlord couple (Everett McGill and
Wendy Robie, who played a similarly wacko couple in
cult series Twin Peaks) is perfectly psycho and the
acting is terrific, even if it at times leans toward
camp. These two are really dislikeable, disturbing
villains who you wish for to get what they deserve -
and naturally they do.
The movie attempts to combine horror with dark humour,
a trick that works as often as it doesn't and some awful
unmotivated slapstick gags falls completely flat. Also
for the bad parts, the film is overlong and wastes too
much time on chasing around the house which often doesn't
get anywhere.
For the good parts, Brandon Adams makes a believable
regular ghetto kid caught up in an almost surreal world
of terror and A.J. Langer is impressive as a tormented
heroine, marking a symbolism for virginity and
child molesting.
Film is mean-spirited and kills off several likable
characters. Feels cruel, but perhaps works on some kind
of level, depending on what the audience is expecting
and the mood they're on.
A severed hand, a skinned corpse, knife-stabbing, floor
filled with blood and a dog dead by stabbing.
Your usual horror-chase score.
A very uneven but interesting horror thriller with a
social message that's somewhat lost in a script with
some effective terror and less working humour
and slapstick.
Review
By: Slicer-Dicer
 |
 |
 |
 |