The People Under the Stairs (1991) – The Test of Time

Usually on Test of Time we are looking at heavy hitter franchises or big-ticket movies from the biggest of big-name horror directors. If we looked at Carpenter, we could look at things like The Thing or Escape From New York and ask the stupidest question in the world, like if they stand the test of time and what their influences would be. For Hooper, you could give Texas Chainsaw 2 a whirl or see if Lifeforce makes any more damn sense now than it did when it came out. The answers to these and many more questions in a Mount Rushmore horror creators list of credits would be yes, yes, they are quite good. Next Question. So really, when you are playing with the big boys you have to go a little deeper, look at the lesser known and often less discussed movies in their bag of goodies. Today we are looking at one from our dear departed Wes Craven. He who gave us Nightmares on Elm Street, made us weary of The Last House on the Left, or in today’s case, to always check on The People Under the Stairs (watch it HERE).

Plot

This time in Craven’s career was very up and down. 1988 would unleash The Serpent and the Rainbow which has only grown in appreciation and the following year we would get another attempt at a slasher villain with Shocker, which, while is certainly enjoyed a fanbase, it hasn’t quite made the leap to the status of other Craven movies. After a quick stop back in the realm of the made for TV movie for the first time in 5 years, he would be inspired partially by the true story that took place in 1978. Two burglars had broken into a house to rob it, and when the police came to the house, they discovered children locked up and held against their will. For a maestro like Wes Craven, this was enough to get a script going and the man had enough cache to get the movie made. Universal would distribute the movie produced by Alive Films and it would be a sizable hit. Released the day after Halloween in 1991, The People Under the Stairs made 31 Million off of its 6-million-dollar budget. The critics enjoyed it too, finding the multitude of themes in the film sharp and fresh if a little on the nose. It was seen as more of a pitch-black comedy than a horror film by some but for my money, its aged into pure horror.

The cast is a solid mix with a ton of recognizable faces who almost all give great performances. Brandon Quinten Adams who plays the lead character of Fool was already kind of a big deal by this point having appeared in 3 Michael Jackson music videos as well as a handful of TV series appearances but would really make a lasting impression by appearing in both The Mighty Ducks AND The Sandlot after this movie. Talk about generational movies. A.J Langer, who plays Alice, would do a lot of TV work but never really go back to horror apart from a role in Arcade from Full Moon Features. Everett McGill and Wendy Robie were actually cast as Man and Woman after Craven had seen then as a couple in the seminal Twin Peaks. McGill hasn’t been in as many things as you might imagine but we will also always love him in Silver Bullet as the doomed Lycanthrope. Robie is in a similar boat that her onscreen partner is with less than 40 roles but would work with Craven again in Vampire in Brooklyn. Throw in character actors Sean Whalen and Bill Cobb along with a solid turn from Ving Rhames and the cast is a lot of fun, something we will see later on.

The movie opens with Poindexter Williams, also known as Fool, and his family receiving an eviction notice. Fool’s mother is terminally ill, and his sister is unable to help get the money they need to stay. The landlords, the married couple the Robesons, have a lot of property under their name and seemingly only care for the payments, not the people. They live in a giant house with their daughter Alice, and Leroy, a friend of Fool’s sister says they have treasure and the only way to help his family is to help Leroy rob the place. They show up with another friend of Leroy’s and pretend to be a boy scout followed by someone posing as a city worker to get in. it works but the three crooks had no idea what they were in for. When Spenser, the other man in the group, goes missing, the other two go in after him and to find the gold.

They find Spenser’s corpse as well as evidence of the alleged gold but are soon trapped and have a dog named Prince set upon them. The house itself is mazelike with hidden openings and traps that confuse and get the remaining two would be burglars trapped. Leroy is shot and killed but Fool is helped at times by a pale looking boy named Roach and the Robesons’ daughter Alice. There are a lot more children kept in the home now, but they have mutated and changed due to eyes, ears, or tongues being removed. Fool tricks man into killing his dog and is able to escape after roach is mortally wounded helping him. He escapes with some of the coins but is unable to help Alice and pledges to return. He finds out that the coins are real and will pay for the family to be able to stay but also that the married couple are brother and sister and that the family has been messed up for generations.

He goes back to free Alice but is almost caught. Through some almost home alone shenanigans and help from the titular people under the stairs, he is able to kill both man and woman as well as free Alice and get the rest of the poor community enough money to live where they want for the rest of their lives. The house is blown up and the trapped children are freed to head home or at least escape their dungeon and attempt to start over.

Signs of the Time

This one doesn’t have a lot of the things we look for in this category, at least the ones that don’t get us called out. By that, of course, I mean how violently 90s it is in its music, slang, and clothes. That is more of a product of it being at the time it was made, especially set as a contemporary film, than a sign of the times but there are a couple. Non-cgi usage was the norm and its mostly good practical effects here even if some of it looks a little bit rubbery. Another big one is that absolute banger of a rap song during the end credits. During this period of filmmaking, it didn’t really matter if it was action, horror, kids’ movie, or drama, there was like a 68% chance you had an earworm song that led you out of the theater. This one happens to be “Do The Right Thing” by Redhead Kingpin and the FBI and was originally supposed to be used in Spike Lee’s movie of the same name.

The big one in this category is this was a time for a mini resurgence of Black horror. While not the same era as the height of Blaxploitation, you also can’t eliminate it simply because Wes Craven was the writer and director. Larry Cohen made some fantastic ones during the main era that are still looked on as classics. The ones I’m referring to here are tales like Candyman, Def By Temptation, and later Tales from the Hood. While the movie leans equally into socio economic issues without race as well as a comical portrayal of conservatism and the us vs them mentality, there are definitely notes and touches on the struggle of the African American community and racism.

What holds up?

Oh, a ton actually. The story and script all do well and still feel fresh and well done. I’ll differentiate script versus dialog however as Craven isn’t bad at writing dialog and most of the performances are solid, but the dialog here isn’t the strongest. The story and how the script is read is stellar though. The acting has mostly reliable performances surrounding Everett McGill who is the showstopper and scene stealer here. His rage is frightening, particularly when he puts on his special suit near the end and all of his timing and cadences in every scene are great. Roach is anther one to single out as he has no lines due to the character having his tongue removed but emotes great and you care about him up until his death. The actual people under the stairs, all those kids that got kidnapped and maimed, are used just enough and shown just enough to be terrifying without being overdone. Its also great how it makes the audience wonder how they are fed before showing you the cannibalism.

One of my favorite aspects of the movie is a character that you may not think of. The house itself with its locks and traps and how it looks bigger on the inside than it does on the outside is a great touch. The house itself has been used or at least seen in a ton of other movies including the interiors being used for Rob Zombie’s Halloween. Its also a weird overall feeling of the movie but it strikes me as almost early survival horror. Doors and stairs controlled by different things, a stalker that can’t be stopped but only slowed down or evaded, lots of tense retread of the same rooms and markings, a treasure to be found, and higher implications for others besides our main characters. It’s really fun and was doing these things far before Resident Evil and even before Alone in the Dark.

What doesn’t hold up?

Most of this movie is quite good and holds up well but there are a couple things. Little things like the sound effects kind of sounding like stock ones that a radio show or early sound movies would use are bothersome but the big one is the other part of the script. While the story and performances mostly hold up just fine, the attempts at humor don’t ever land and it’s not a delivery problem. There are also some on the nose pieces of dialog that come across as someone writing what they think people would say rather than what someone would actually say. The script also takes leaps of logic with some of the characters decisions and motivations to a degree that you may only notice on a rewatch…or if you are trying to dissect it a bit like us. The final thing is the runtime. While the runtime on any given movie isn’t inherently an issue, it has to earn it and there are some scenes here that drag on or tread the same ground that could absolutely be cut down for the sake of brevity.

Verdict

While it has a few things that bog it down, there is more than enough here to not only keep it relevant and entertaining, but an important part of both Wes Craven’s catalog and 90’s horror in general. Weather it’s a first time watch or its been enough, grab one of Scream Factory’s Blu-ray or 4Ks and see why People Under the Stairs fully stands the Test of Time.

A couple of the previous episodes of The Test of Time can be seen below. To see more, click over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!