Sunday 23 October 2011

The People Under the Stairs

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Year:1991
Country of origin:USA
Director:Wes Craven
Genre:Blackly comic horror
Starring: Brandon Quintin Adams , Everett McGill, Wendy Robie
Rating:3/5
IMDB link:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105121/
Tagline:In every neighborhood there is one house that adults whisper about and children cross the street to avoid.
Favourite line:"Your father's one sick mother. Actually your mother is one sick mother too."

Something of a flop both with horror fans and critics at the time, this is an unusual movie, and it's easy to see why people didn’t take to it.

The premise is this:
a brother and sister landlord and landlady live together in their old family house, and with them in the house live several generations of children that they have stolen from the neighbourhood, only they aren't free to roam they house, instead they are imprisoned in the basement (eeriely reminiscent of recent findings in Austria), except a young girl who is kept in the attic, and another who escaped, and now lives in the walls themselves.
When a trio of disgruntled tenants decide to pay them a less than friendly visit - they intend to rob the landlords - they become embroiled in a struggle to escape the myriad dangers of the house - the dog, the maniac couple and The People Under the Stairs. Infused with a black as coal sense of humour, this feels quite unlike any other movie I have seen.

Imagine a cross between The Addams Family, Nightbreed and, maybe, Evil Dead 2 and you get somewhere near, though not precisely.
The lead characters are excellent, especially Wendy Robie as the sadistic landlady, and even the lead child character isn't too bile inducing and, but for too many lengthy sections of the brother wandering around the house in a gimp mask, this would have scored even higher.
An interesting curiosity then, but not essential viewing.

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