Wes Craven Didn't Do Too Bad

Wes Craven's The People Under The Stairs takes a modern twist on an old story. Fool has just turned thirteen and his mother has cancer. She will die if she doesn't receive an operation to remove it. However, Fool's family can not afford an operation since they live in the ghetto, and the ghetto has no money. To make matters worse they are being evicted from their run down apartment.

Eventually a discovery is made; the landlord of Fool's apartment complex is also the landlord of most of the property in the ghetto. To put it another way, the landlords are filthy stinkin' rich. A plot is hatched by Leroy, Spencer, and Fool to rob the landlords house of their gold coin collection. Once they all enter the house though, they may never come out.

The People Under The Stairs is actually an entertaining horror flick. I found myself spooked on more than one occasion during the film. The plot is actually believable. Insane fundamentalist Christians who kidnap children in hopes of raising them to hear, speak, and see no evil could actually and probably do happen if you think about it.

Some familiar faces can be seen in the movie. Brandon Adams plays fool, and he has also been seen in Michael Jackson music videos. A.J. Langer is Alice, and she gives a solid performance. You might remember her from the short lived show My So-Called Life. It is obvious that Craven put together a talented group of actors.

Violence and profanity are used a lot during the film. This film is not for children. The violence in the film is very graphic(i.e. hanging a man upside down and cutting off his flesh), and there are other images that may spook young audiences or the faint of heart.

Craven does an exceptional job of demonstrating the horrors inside the house without using a sickening amount of violence and sexuality. Yes, the movie does show killing, but not as much as it could have. The actual people under the stairs have all had body parts removed from them, but not once are we subjected to watching them being removed.

Sexual abuse is also hinted in the film, but it is not explicitly shown. That wins a thumbs up for me, since the last thing I want to watch in a main stream film is raunchy sex, or sexual abuse for that matter. There is no nudity or sex in the film. The "R" rating mainly from the amount of graphic violence and profanity.

The People Under The Stairs is an entertaining horror film. It has it's own style and individuality to it that I haven't seen in many horror films put out in the 1990's. Comparing it to Craven's more recent work, The People Under The Stairs kept my interest ten times more than any of his pathetic teen slasher flicks.