“See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.”

Kyle’s rating: Thank God I live in a home with no basement!

Kyle’s review: I first saw The People Under the Stairs as a young boy, and it scared the living daylights out of me. Watching it again as an older connoisseur of horror, it’s a little weak but still a fine example of suburban thrills and chills. Every neighborhood has one, the big house with the scary couple neighbors nod and wave at just so they might be spared from future homicidal wrath.

The plot is a simple one, poor kid looking for gold coins breaks into house where gold coins are and discovers more than he bargained for, including said homicidal couple, a young desperate girl, a lot of danger and, of course, some people under the stairs.

Are the people under the stairs bad or good? I’ll leave that to you, but you’re probably wrong.

All in all, this film plays perfectly on cable, where you can watch it one dark night on cable and enjoy the endless romps of the main hero, a young boy named Fool, under the stairs and through the house’s secret passages, marvel at the odd prayer, dress habits and true lineage of the homicidal couple, and get up for celery and beer during commercials. See it on cable, but don’t pay for it unless it’s a dime or something. Even then, keep your dime.

Justin’s rating: I ain’t no Fool

Justin’s review: Every so often I like to circle back on an interesting cult movie that I watched decades ago and wrote what I now consider to be an unsatisfactory review. 2025 Justin totally judges 1999 Justin for all of his many failings and also his full head of hair! Thus, I’ve been meaning to revisit one of director Wes Craven’s most interesting horror entries — and perhaps do it justice this time around.

Three years before he returned to the realm of Freddy Kruger and five years before he struck it huge again with Ghostface, Craven gave audiences a most curious urban haunted house experience — and one with a bit of cheek.

Thirteen-year-old Fool (Brandon Adams, The Mighty Ducks) is a sweet young kid with problems a-plenty. His family lives in the ghetto, his mom needs a surgery she can’t afford, and their vicious landlords are pricing them out of house and home. Given the opportunity to burgle the landlords’ house for the much-needed cash, Fool stumbles into the freakiest situation this side of a circus sideshow.

The house has hollow walls, secret rooms, automatic traps, no way out, a bloodthirsty dog, and what appears to be a full-on dungeon in the basement where plenty of odd people seem to be living. And the owners — Mommy (Wendy Robie) and Daddy (Everett McGill) — are murderous tyrants who impose their draconian rules and suffer no, er, fools. Oh, and did I mention that they also run a funeral business?

(As a really fun aside, McGill and Robie were also playing off each other as a married couple in Twin Peaks at the time as Big Ed and Nadine.)

Creeping through the house and unable to escape, Fool makes some unlikely allies in the form of Mommy and Daddy’s daughter Alice (AJ Langer, Arcade) and a tongueless teen named Roach (Sean Whalen, who was in pretty much every cool weird movie of the ’90s). As Fool himself narrates at the beginning of the movie, this might be the crucible that takes him from an ignorant kid and transforms him into the man he desires to become.

Probably the most convincing reason I can give anyone to see this is that The People Under the Stairs feels totally unique as a horror film. It’s a crime caper that goes through a fun house of horrors, dishing out horror and comedy but ultimately playing out as a dark fairy tale — a sensation helped by Fool’s opening narration that lays out the quest ahead. Think of this as an urban version of Jack and the Beanstalk, and you won’t be far off.

Yes, it’s grody in parts, which is inevitable when you’ve got cannibals on the prowl, but this isn’t about taking the audience down into scares and gross-outs. Fool isn’t here to survive; he’s aiming to save his mom, his future, trapped children, and even his neighborhood. There’s even a treasure in the form of gold coins to plunder. He’s an unlikely knight facing dragons in their den, and he’s going to need all the bravery he can get to win the day.

Tell me that’s not cool! There’s even a dash of Goonies spirit with the kids adventuring through forbidden territory and frequently turning the tables on the two grown-ups.

With extremely memorable characters, as many laughs as scares, wild interior design, and an actual feel-good ending, The People Under the Stairs is a trip unlike any other.

Intermission!

• When you get “judgment,” “death,” and “the devil” while using tarot cards, it’s time to call it quits
• Ving Rhames! So young!
• “Damn buckshot.”
• The hand coming in to hand her a fork
• “Bad girls burn in hell!”
• The house’s inner fortifications are pretty formidable
• “Your mama sleeps with CATS!”
• All the dead flies that couldn’t escape — not a good sign
• “I ain’t stupid!” runs out of the scary basement
• The stairs turning into a slide
• Electrified front door
• “Can’t get out. No one ever has.”
• Why do you need a gimp suit to hunt someone?
• When Fool punches the dog in the nose, yeah!
• The doggie slide into the kitchen
• All the dolls representing the visitors who “saw too much.”
• “Total spring cleaning.”
• Fool doing a running punch to the groin is a hero move right there
• The spike trap
• The room with all the pictures and candles
• Oh hello, Mr. Exposition Guy! You’re in this?
• The tape decoy is something else
• “Must have been one of those smart bricks!”