The People under the Stairs (1991)

	Also Known As: Le sous-sol de la peur (French)
	Year of first release: 1991
	Director: Wes Craven (Scream, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Last House on the Left)
	Actors:  Brandon Quintin Adams, Everett McGill, Wendy Robie, Ving Rhames (Pulp Fiction)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Thriller, Horror
	Conditions of visioning: 28.01.2016, Cinema Paradiso, GIFFF2016
Synopsis: The kid nicknamed Fool (Adams) follows Leroy (Rhames) into robbing their landlord in order to get money to avoid eviction and treat his mother's disease. The house they rob is full of surprises.
Review: It was the only one of the Wes Craven movies presented during the tribute at the Gérardmer Film Festival that I had never seen, the other two being his masterpieces of the genre Scream and a Nightmare on Elm Street. And it was nice to watch amongst recent productions this classic of the Horror from the 80-90's, which follows codes that wouldn't work anymore today. It also shows scenes that I wonder how they passed censorship, like when the kid witnesses the terrible fate of Leroy (played by a funny young Ving Rhames). It is not an extremely scary movie because the latex make-up effects are dated, and the humour is over-the-top, but there is a quality to this movie difficult to describe, also probably mixed with a dose of nostalgia for the cinema of that period. There is in this movie an incredible creative energy that would be used to fill a full Horror trilogy nowadays (or even more in the case of Paranormal Activity). People are non-stop running around, chasing each other, escaping, getting caught or crawling behind walls in a house which is a character in itself. I now see how much the recent Kiwi Housebound was inspired from it. The landlords family is also depicted in a totally exaggerated way (yet delicious to watch): the father obsessed with money and dressing SM when shooting shotgun through the walls (!), the maniac mother and the way she educated the daughter with adages like "Children should be seen, not heard" posted in her bedroom, or a statue reading "Speak/See/Hear no evil". Well done Wes Craven.
Rating: 7 /10