The People Under the Stairs

The People Under the Stairs (1991)

Runtime: 103 minutes

Directed by: Wes Craven

Starring: Brandon Adams, Everett McGill, Wendy Robie, A.J. Langer, Ving Rhames

From: Universal 

I had an unintended Ving Rhames doubleheader. Shortly after viewing Piranha 3D on Prime Friday night, this played on the Universal Monsters streaming channel-I hadn’t tackled People before so it featuring Rhames in a prominent role was a surprise. Besides the opportunity to see a Wes Craven joint new to me, I’m always down for seeing a Black-centered horror film. After viewing, I really missed out on not giving this bizarre picture a chance much sooner. My apologies to Wes Craven—not everything I’ve seen has been loved but most ranged from OK to very good.

This horror-comedy is also a satire; gentrification and capitalism is skewered as a couple (Everett McGill & Wendy Robie, cast as a REALLY weird couple as they were a couple-presumably weird-in Twin Peaks) are A-hole white landlords who attempt to price out poor Black-dominated apartments so they can be bulldozed for white businesses. Our lead is a 13-year-old Black male nicknamed Fool. As his mom has cancer, Leroy (Rhames) brings pal Spenser and Fool along to burglarize the house of a large stash of coins. It goes awry…

Production design deserves credit; what dingy, macabre digs our villains have—dirty, retro furniture, yet containing then-modern tech to keep the titular people under the stairs. Of course I won’t spoil who those people are except that I was with this film despite its most outlandish moments or plot twists. McGill and Robie were unforgettable as the villains-what an unusual dynamic they had w/ each other. Brandon Adams as Fool did a swell job as a teen who was believable in such a scenario and was easy to root for. So was A.J. Langer as Alice, the most normal person in that house of horrors—a key theme is not knowing what lies behind closed doors.

Stairs was a wild ride which delivered a not-so-subtle message but did so in a fun manner while delivering satirical barbs against its targets-a message that sadly hasn’t diminished in importance. Apparently, Jordan Peele noted it as an influence; others reminded me it had to influence Don’t Breathe. Even I noticed the parallels to Barbarian. If it has not been made clear already, many genre fans should give this a shot if they love the director, appreciate social commentary in their horror, like horror-comedies, and/or want to see teenage leads that aren’t unbearable. As I say often, this sort of genre exercise is preferable to much of what we get in modern times.