8) The People Under the Stairs (1991)

"Sometimes in is out"

Director
Wes Craven

Cast
Brandon Adams - Fool
Everett McGill - Father
Wendy Robie - Mother
A.J. Langer - Alice
Ving Rhames - Leroy


When I wrote that I'd be posting about "obscure" horror movies on this blog, I meant obscure in general - not necessarily among other horror film fans. I mean, what horror movie would be obscure among horror movie enthusiasts?
Perhaps, The People Under the Stairs isn't as obscure as other movies I've written about, or will write about. It's a movie I really wanted to talk about when the idea for this blog was just a young, fledgling thought in the ankle-deep pool of other...things...I have in my head.
I get a strange enjoyment for movies that take place in run-down unsettling homes set up like a giant maze. Other movies such as the Nothing But Trouble (which happened to come out the same year as this movie) and The Boy come to mind. What's inside the walls? What's behind all those doors? It's an imagination's playground. The People Under the Stairs brought that affinity on for me.
This is a underrated gem of a Wes Craven movie that deserves a little more attention. And like his more well known A Nightmare on Elm Street, this movie is based on true events.
Back in the 1970s, Craven read a news article about two burglars who broke into a Los Angeles home and stumbled upon two children who had been locked up by their parents.
The story of something or someone(s) scary or even just unsettling, that didn't belong in a home, sucking up all the comfort a home brings, and living in an unlivable part of that house like underneath the stairs drew me in. I could relate as the home I grew up in had a stair case that went to the garage. The basement was underneath the stairs. There was a hole in the wall at the bottom of the stair case that looked into the dirt area adjacent to the basement. My boyhood imagination often pictured someone peering through that hole.
I didn't get to see this movie until years after its release. I recall the desire (forbidden pleasure or morbid curiosity?) to get inside a theater and see what these people under the stairs were all about, and more importantly, what they looked like.
Incidentally, speaking of Wes Craven, A Nightmare on Elm Street 6 - Freddy's Dead; The Final Nightmare also came out in 1991, and happens to be the first horror movie I saw in a theater. I was 10 years old then. And even back then, I knew I reached a milestone that day, getting to watch an actual horror movie inside a theater rather then sneaking out to watch it with some of my brothers while my parents were in bed. And what was even better, it was a Freddy Kreuger movie! I mean, why swim on the shallow end when I can just dive off the board into the deep end.
Incidentally, part six was terrible, but I didn't care at the time. To its credit, it does have one of the best lines in horror movie history, "The map says we're fucked!" Yes...it did!

Everett McGill and Brandon Adams in The People Under the Stairs.

In The People Under the Stairs, former child actor Brandon Adams plays Poindexter Williams, nicknamed "Fool," who lives with his mother and sister, Ruby, in a ramshackle complex in the middle L.A's ghetto. As they're two days late paying the rent, their landlord raises the rent, or they have to move out the next day. His mother is bedridden with cancer, and none of them can afford medication or hospital visits.
Ruby's boyfriend, Leroy (Ving Rhames), tells them their landlords are getting rich off the poverty of their tenants. Those landlords, the Robesons, are an unsavory pair, and not just because of their greed. Plus, Fool and his family are the last tenants in the apartment, and the landlords want them out so they can build larger, more expensive apartments.
They own several properties including a building that has a liquor store. After the store gets robbed, Leroy learns that the Robesons have gold coins in their possession somewhere in their home. And as they're rich, and the ghetto is poor, he devises a plan to break into their home, find those coins, and give the money back to the ghetto (or so he says.)
Leroy gets his friend, Spencer, in on the plan, along with Fool, to scope out Robeson's huge house with padlocks on the outside of the windows.
Once they get inside, they can't get out. Eventually, it all comes down to Fool who finds himself alone. He discovers people caged in the basement underneath the staircase. He also finds a young girl wandering around the house named Alice (A.J. Langer.) She's the Robeson's daughter, and tries to save Fool all while enduring her parents abuse and torment in fear and constant trepidation. They also get help from Roach (Sean Whalen) - one of the boys who was trapped in the basement, but escaped into the walls. He has a small but crucial role in helping Fool achieve what he came to do.
The only thing that's saving them is Mr. Robeson's fear of going inside the walls because he doesn't know what's in there. So, he has a Rottweiler named Prince to do that for him.
The appearance and behavior of the guys in the basement shows that they haven't seen the light of day in who knows how long? They've been reduced to cannibalism, and the audience really doesn't know what their demeanor is. Are they good? Or are they evil?
As Fool tries to escape, running through the walls of the house while Mr. Robeson tries to hunt him down, he learns more and more about what has been going on inside.
There's certainly a satirical tone in the movie. The rich versus the poor. The rich of course being immersed in the sludge of their own desires which leads to absolute, sadistic insanity. The audience is seeing it from the outside looking in. We catch them at the point were they're so far gone, with their minds so rancid, that we discover who the Robersons really are. That moment is just cringe-worthy to say the least.
Adams is not annoying as most other child actors tend to be. He's perhaps best known for playing a young Michael Jackson in the "Badder" segment seen in the movie Moonwalker. Instead, Adams seems sincere, relateable and taking his role seriously. He's not trying to pull off more than he is by not letting the fact that he's a motion picture go to his head - a vibe I sometimes get from other child actors.
And what's more, he plays off the main antagonists, played by Everett McGill and Wendy Robie, really well.

Wendy Robie and Everett McGill as the Robesons.

McGill and Robie both starred together in Twin Peaks. With the three being the most unlikely kind of people to face off against each other, they do it fantastically.
And speaking of McGill, he has such a menacing on-screen presence that lingers from beginning to end. He portrays a man with no compassion, no mercy, nor even the slightest bit of sympathy. The audience just has to look at the dead look in his eyes to see a character so far immersed in his own greed and desires. And the ending with just him and young Fool, who's only threat to Mr. Robeson is exposing him and his deeds for all to see, is played with such tension and intrigue, it makes the movie a real gem of a horror film.
Wendy Robie isn't necessarily bad, but she's a bit over the top as she portrays her part of the sick couple. It's not necessarily a distraction, but it is at times a little too ridiculous. Then again, it is considered a horror-comedy, so it certainly fits.
On top of that, the visuals in this movie are memorable. I say "unsettling" a lot, but that's exactly what it is. The People Under the Stairs offers a story that pulls the audience in, scares them and keeps them locked inside, and finally lets them go on a satisfying and "what's next" ending.