Pages

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Stream-And-Run, Halloween Edition: The People Under The Stairs (1991)



            They don’t come any weirder than this…

            Wes Craven’s The People Under The Stairs begins with a tarot card reading, follows that up with a young kid forced to steal from his landlord to pay the rent and his mother’s medical bills, and then finds the kid trapped in said landlord’s family’s house, where he’s terrorized by the family and the cannibalistic freaks they keep locked in the basement... And that’s just the first hour. Craven’s film is jam-packed with batshit weirdness, to such an extent that when one of the main characters suddenly shows up in a gimp costume brandishing a shotgun with no explanation given, none is really needed by that point. The overall oddity of the film certainly keeps it entertaining, and Craven of course stages all the chases and shocks with an eye only a master of horror such as himself could, but The People Under The Stairs soon wears out its welcome, proving that weirdness can take you only so far.


No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...