THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS

Young lad Fool (Brandon Quintin Adams) lives in a slum neighbourhood, tending after his cancer-addled mother. He dreams of the day he can grow up and save her by becoming a doctor.

Enter local thief Leroy (Ving Rhames), with the bad news that the landlord of the tenement block they're all living in intends to evict his tenants and have the building turned into offices.

Hinting that his mother's illness could be cured via a costly operation, Leroy suggests that Fool could help him break into the landlord's huge house on the edge of town, and steal his reportedly priceless collection of golden coins.

Fool is swift to fall in with Leroy's scheming, and before long is dressed as a boy scout in a bid to gain entry into the landlord's fortress-style house. Alas, the lady who comes to the door (Wendy Robie) brusquely shoos him away.

On to Plan B. Leroy gets his mate Spencer (Jeremy Roberts) to pose as a gasman and worm his way into the woman's abode. Leroy and Fool watch from their van across the street as Spencer enters ... and, minutes later, the lady leaves in her car. Believing their pal to have privileged access to an unguarded treasure trove, the pair make their way over the road and into the house.

But all is not what it seems. After fending off the household's terrifying Rottweiler Fred, the pair delve deeper into the house and in search of Spencer ... but find a lot more than they bargained for when the woman returns with her male partner (Everett McGill).

Soon separated as they strive to remain hidden from the clearly demented homeowners, Leroy and Fool discover that the house is also elaborately booby-trapped: electrocuting doorknobs, self-locking doors, barred windows etc ... there appears to be no easy escape!

Fool, in particular, uncovers a disturbing sub-plot when he finds demure Alice (A J Langer) cowering in her bedroom, and hears of a troubled kid called Roach (Sean Whalen) who exists in the crawlspace of the house's wall cavities, much to the landlord's murderous displeasure.

Of course, Fool's first instinct is one of survival. But he's also loyal to his friend Leroy, and is undeniably motivated further by the gold coin he finds too. But what will happen when he meets the titular characters, confined to the house's expansive cellar?

Wes Craven's THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS was released in 1991 to mild critical acclaim. It quickly drifted onto video release and became generally well thought-of without ever troubling the space occupied by his earlier classics such as THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, THE HILLS HAVE EYES and A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET.

In retrospect, the film is actually a lot better than its fair-to-middling reputation would suggest. Once the bare premise is established in its first five minutes, Craven never lets the pace flag: STAIRS is a truly fun-filled, flab-free film.

Performances and general production values are very good and, apart from a couple of iffy rap songs on the soundtrack, it's interesting to note that there's nothing to really pin this film down to any specific era. The bulk of the action takes place in the landlord's exaggerated, nightmarishly labyrinthine house and, if anything, the decor and decay evoke that of a house untouched since the 1950s.

Robie and McGill are formidable villains. They can be funny without being comical, and truly berserk (he, in his studded gimp suit, blasting his shotgun through the house walls; she, grimacing with wild eyes while dishing out puritanical cruelty against Alice in actions that would make Carrie White's mother blush) when Craven's direction requires it. Their menace is overblown but that's okay - the whole story and its delivery has that theatrical, blackly humorous undercurrent to it that suggests we need a good pantomime 'baddie' to root against. These two fit that bill nicely. The only shame in their regard is that their back-story only factors in the final third of the film, when a peripheral character hurriedly reveals it to Fool. The word "afterthought" does spring to mind...

Well-lit and reasonably well-shot (I've yet to see a Craven film that concerns itself to any great extent with cinematography), THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS gets its balance of humour and horror right for the most part, and the fact that the breakneck action in the latter half - which is essentially an elongated chase - owes more to Looney Tunes cartoons than a Romero or Carpenter-type flick hardly matters: the film is enjoyable, and nuts.

The film has aged extremely well, perhaps bolstered by its disturbing underlying themes (child abuse; racial inequality) and the fact that nothing quite so demented has been made with such finesse or budget since.

Arrow Films Video serve THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS its maiden blu-ray outing. I doubt it'll get a better treatment any time soon.

The film is presented uncut as a healthily-sized MPEG4-AVC file, in 1080p and respecting the original 1.85:1 aspect ratio with 16x9 enhancement.

Brighter and bolder than ever before, I found this presentation to be quite remarkable. Colours pop off the screen, detail in close-up is highly impressive and the clean print exhibits an amazing amount of clarity in both light and dark sequences. I have no beefs whatsoever about the look of STAIRS on this disc.

Similarly, the 2.0 English Master HD mix is excellent throughout. Optional English subtitles are well-written and easy to read.

The disc opens to an animated main menu page. From there, pop-up sub-menus include a scene-selection menu allowing access to the film via 12 chapters.

Extras begin with an engaging, mirth-filled commentary track from Adams. His love of horror, Craven's placid nature as a director, why it's better to have STAIRS posters on your bedroom wall than Playboy centrefolds, the skills of acting in mute roles, the sub-theme of the oppressed black neighbours who live next to the affluent white landowners ... all of this gets covered with intelligence and wit, along with much more.

"Fear, Freud and Class Warfare" is an excellent 24-minute featurette in which Craven speaks more on the film's social themes. Craven's as erudite and affable as ever in this worthy, if slightly academic, bonus.

"Behind Closed Doors" finds Langer looking well as she reminisces over how she won the role, the occasionally tough scenes to shoot and her overall fondness for the film. This runs for an agreeable 14 minutes in length.

The cheekily titled "Silent But Deadly" is a 14-minute chat with Whalen. As noted in the commentary track, he hasn't changed much - though, thankfully, he has a tongue here!

"Underneath the Floorboards" is, on paper, the oddest extra. It's a 9-minute appraisal of the film by Jeffrey Reddick, creator of the FINAL DESTINATION series. However, give it a chance and you'll find his sincere appreciation to be welcoming, as well as garner an understanding of his affinity with themes in the film.

All of the above extras were created by High Rising Productions. They're all presented in HD, and with 16x9 framing.

The film's original 90-second trailer is pillar-boxed and of-its-time.

As is the norm with Arrow releases, STAIRS also comes with double-sided reversible cover artwork and a collector's booklet. Neither of these were made available for review purposes.

THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS is an endearingly mad, high-energy slice of depraved horror and dark comedy that deserves to be re-evaluated. There's no better way of doing so than via Arrow's excellent blu-ray release.

Review by Stuart Willis