Whatcha Craven?: The People Under the Stairs (1991)

Wes Craven loves to take the innocents that exist in this world, like Nancy in Nightmare, Sidney in Scream, and the Carter family in The Hills Have Eyes, and throw them into a situation well beyond the normal parameters of their lives. With his 1991 film The People Under the Stairs, Wes went younger with his protagonist than he ever had before. It’s a dangerous road to go down working with a child actor, and it could be what makes or breaks your film. Sometimes they can draw you in, making you feel like you did when you were their age, but there’s also the chance they won’t be up to the task presented to them.

The People Under the Stairs follows Poindexter “Fool” Williams (Brandon Quentin Adams), a 13 year old boy who shares an apartment in the ghetto with his sister, her children, and their mother who is sick with cancer. When they miss their rent and are about to be evicted, “Fool” is desperate to find a way to help. So when family friend Leroy (Ving Rhames) approaches him with a plan to rob a cache of gold from their landlords, “Fool” reluctantly agrees. When they break in, they soon find themselves trapped in the house, and the landlords turn out to be creepy, cannibalistic kidnappers. “Fool” must find a way to escape with the money and their abused daughter before he becomes their prisoner as well.

The young man who plays “Fool” Williams is perhaps the highlight of the film. This is a child actor who was quite up to the task before him, but sadly, the task itself was a deeply flawed one. Brandon Quentin Adams had quite a pedigree coming into this film. After all, he got his start as Zeke “Baby Bad” in Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker. From there he took roles in films such as The Mighty Ducks and The Sandlot, and as of late he has provided the voice of Raijin in the Kingdom Hearts video games. Personally, I thought Adams was very strong in The People Under the Stairs, and his reactions all mirror those that a 13 year old boy might have when put in the same situation.

The problem is that the situation itself has quite a bit of issues. Once trapped in the house he is confronted by stairs that turn into slides, secret passages, an unstoppable Rottweiler, and the “Mom” and “Dad” who seem like crazier versions of Baby Jane and Bob from the Church of the Sub-Genius. The film starts to become Home Alone in reverse. Instead of the kid fending off the bad robbers, we have the kid robbing the place and fending off the baddies that are after him. As the film goes on it devolves more and more into slapstick type violence which is punctuated by a few shots of gore. Without the gore, and 2 uses of the F-word, then I would say this film was geared toward kids around the main character’s age. I’m sure if I had seen this when I was 12 or 13 I would have loved it, but as an adult, I found it did not deliver on the tension necessary to make the situation dire or enough laughs for me to consider this a dark comedy.

That’s not to say it wasn’t an enjoyable film to watch. I found it quite entertaining mostly due to the performances of Adams and his costars. Ving Rhames provides a small but solid part, but as I’ve said before about him (in my review of Entrapment), I find he generally plays the same character in every film with this being no exception. Everett McGill and Wendy Robie are perfectly creepy as the “Mom” and “Dad” characters, and fans of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks will recognize them as Big Ed and Nadine Hurley. Essentially they play broader versions of the creeps that they portrayed in Lynch’s series, but by the time McGill’s “Dad” is dressed like the gimp while chasing the boy around the house, he loses any real ability to be scary. Instead the two antagonists devolve over the film to become cartoonish caricatures, and it’s too bad. If the film had taken a darker bent then the two of them would have made excellent baddies.

There are a couple of parts of the film that I did really like. Seventeen year old A.J. Langer may have been way too old to be playing “Mom” and “Dad”’s captive 12 year old daughter Alice, but along with Brandon Quentin Adams she turned in a fine performance. On an interesting side note, Langer grew up and married a British Lord which is a hell of a long way from her supporting role in Craven’s flick.

The other thing I really liked in the film were all the scenes featuring the titular People, a group of kidnapped boys kept in the basement. With one exception, you don’t get a good look at any of them until the end of the film, and it makes them a eerie presence throughout. The one you do get to meet, Roach, is played by Sean Whalen, and his is probably the most memorable character in the film. His tongue having been cut out by “Mom” and “Dad” he has escaped into the walls where he has developed a friendship with Alice. I really liked the exuberant insanity he brought to the screen like he was a maniacal member of Peter Pan’s lost boys. Whalen is still at work today and has appeared in Charlie’s Angels (2000), The Hebrew Hammer (2003), and Employee of the Month (2006).

The People Under the Stairs does feature some really well constructed shots, and it is some of the best film making that Craven has displayed since the original Nightmare. Cinematographer Sandi Sissel had a background in documentary film, and I think it really shows. The opening images of “Fool”’s home are strikingly filmed, and the adventures he has in the walls of the house look great. I love the way the light is captured coming through cracks, and sometimes bullet holes, in the walls. Again, I have to go back to my wish that the film had been given a darker tone. I don’t think a thing would have had to be done to the camera work as it is noticeably more moody than the tone of the film.

I don’t have that much else to say about the film except that is was quite a disappointment. This is one some friends of mine had hyped up as being very good, but I was just let down. It really seemed like Craven wanted to make a kids horror film, but he made it for a mature audience. While I am no big fan of remakes, I would love to see this one redone with more emphasis on the darker side of the story.

Bugg Rating