On P List of Movie Reviews

(For optimum viewing, adjust the zoom level of your browser to 125%.)

---

The People Under the Stairs (1991)

Rate: 3
Viewed: 9/11

9/11: There you have it: Wes Craven is the Master of Suck.

Here's more crap from him, and this time, it's called The People Under the Stairs, a sadistic film that's primarily made for sadists. Explain this to me as if I'm a five-year-old child: when somebody shoots a shotgun repeatedly like dozens of times in a day, why haven't the cops been called over to investigate the noise? Okay, the house. The size of it and how everybody is able to move around freely behind the walls...it must be the Louvre, yes?

It's obvious Wes Craven was fascinated by the macabre stories of people being locked up in the house for years and years. I have to say the concept is sick. He makes the film worse by adding more ridiculous stuff until it has gotten out of control, reducing the believability factor. The show dies once Ving Rhames' character is killed which occurs at the half-hour mark. In a freefall descent, the rest of it is manipulative, racist, stupid, over the top, and cartoonish.

All in all, The People Under the Stairs is for sick people.

---