Midnight Movie of the Week #83 - The People Under The Stairs

It's taken me a long time to get to this point I'm at right now; the point at which I finally make sense of my feelings regarding The People Under The Stairs.  I remember the film becoming a staple of my middle school years in the early '90s, but I never remembered really caring that much about what the movie itself actually was.  Like The Blob and Clownhouse before it, this was a movie that I watched specifically because it was a "scary" movie, and I didn't really take much time to think about why I liked it so much it.  I knew that it was the kind of movie I wanted to like - I just didn't know why.

The problem is, I never really stopped to think about it after its initial run in the household ended.  I remember being stoked due to nostalgia when it hit DVD, and I snatched up a copy and watched it with another decade under my belt...but the movie kind of slipped away from me again.  So now I'm here - 20 years after the movie was first released - and there's only one word going through my head to explain the whole situation.

Fool.

That's right, fool.  And I don't mean fool as in "Hey, The Mike, you were a fool for forgetting how much you enjoyed The People Under The Stairs" - I mean fool as in Fool, the film's 13 year old hero.

Fool - who must figure that his nickname is less insulting than his real name (Poindexter) - joins his mother's friend Leroy (Ving Rhames in da house!!!!!) in an attempt to rob the rich landlords who are evicting them from their apartment.  But things get hairy pretty quickly, as Leroy and his accomplice are killed by the man and woman who own the home (Everett McGill and Wendy Robie), leaving Fool to uncover the secrets of the old house and those who live in it.  

The film quickly establishes just how crazy these people are (If a full body leather BDSM suit doesn't scream "dysfunctional", I don't know what does!) which means that Fool is quickly thrown into the role of survivor.  The character sees the craziness around him, but this kid from "the ghetto" rarely blinks in the face of adversity.  Director (and old friend of FMWL) Wes Craven is making a statement about the resolve of the people who live in this low income neighborhood throughout the film, and Fool quickly becomes an honest to goodness hero who represents his people.

Though Brandon Adams - who would go on to co-star in kid sport flicks The Sandlot and The Mighty Ducks - stars, the role of Fool seems like one that would be written for someone like Bruce Willis.  In fact, Fool is kind of a early teen version of John McClane, using his surroundings to maneuver around the diabolical couple with the help of their abused daughter (future Escape from L.A. co-star AJ Langer) and one of their sons, Roach (Sean Whalen, most famous to me for that Aaron Burr/peanut butter/milk commercial directed by Michael Bay).  Roach is not the only son, of course, because there's still those pesky folks under the stairs to deal with.

Truthfully, there are times that I forget there are people under the stairs in The People Under the Stairs.  That sounds like a problem - generally the title characters of your horror movie should matter in the plot - but the battle between Fool and the ridiculously over the top couple is so much fun that I don't even care that we only get random glances of the creatures that look so menacing. As part of my repeated forgettings of the film, I even forgot what exactly these pale savages were.  I think there was a part of my brain that thought they were zombies, which is just quite wrong.

In my heart, I can't stop wondering why us horror fans don't talk about The People Under The Stairs more often.  My brain knows that it's not really scary and the plot is scattered all over the place and it's kind of over-the-top, but reuniting with it has me convinced that we all underestimate this one too much.  The bottom line for me is that this is a dark adventure with a unique story and one heckuva hero - even if he is a 13 year-old kid from the ghetto.  Craven has never made a film that didn't have a few lulls and some poor choices in the plot, but I think The People Under the Stairs is probably the film from him that leaves me most satisfied.

So yeah, maybe this isn't an all around horror classic but - for the third straight decade - I can't help feeling like it's a friggin' blast to watch.  I suppose it's not the most substantial Midnight Movie of the Week I've ever picked, but I'm darn glad that I'm finally putting some thoughts on this one to (cyber) paper, because I don't want to forget about it again.  Fool, wherever you are, I salute you. You're one of the true heroes in horror history, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.