THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS

A thirteen-year-old black boy living in the ghetto sneaks, along with two adult thieves, into the giant house where the owners of most of the ghetto's apartments live. Strange rumors circulate about the two homeowners and what lives in the walls of their home, and the intruders will discover at their expense that many of the rumors about them are not urban legends. Mami and Papi (these are the names they call themselves) are actually brother and sister who practice incest and cannibalism, and also have the hobby of kidnapping boys to find their ideal son; only the boys either talk, see, or hear too much, ending up mutilated as punishment and locked in the basement. It will be the task of the young black thief to survive the two tormentors and put an end to the horror. With the help of a suggestive and claustrophobic set design with a vaguely Gothic flavor, Wes Craven manages to craft with "The Black House" a successful film built like a fairy tale... black as pitch, of course! In fact, the Gothic and surreal echo can be found on several occasions, starting with the house itself where the film is set, depicted as a small fortress, inaccessible from the outside and impossible to violate from the inside, as if it were an impregnable medieval castle, whose only weak point are the interstices, where one of the mutilated boys who escaped Papi's control roams freely. The two antagonists of the story are also sketched as if they were characters from the pen of the Brothers Grimm: he is tall and strong, devoted to cannibalism and proud to wear a disturbing sadomasochistic suit to hunt the intruders: a real ogre! She, on the other hand, has the classic witch look: prominent cheekbones, bony fingers, and hallucinated gaze. Notably worthy of mention are the makeup effects with which the inhabitants of the basement (similar to zombies) were depicted and the gore department, which boasts various skinning and mutilations. Being a film by Craven, who also took care of the screenplay, naturally there are no shortage of political and social references. Once again, the family is seen as an aberrant institution that creates monsters (a theme dear to Craven, as to Hooper, of which he has given proof in countless of his films), in this case the family (non-family perhaps one should say) is composed of two incestuous and capitalist brothers, kidnappers and cannibals, very close to the non-family of criminals in "The Last House on the Left" and perhaps its evolution/devolution. Furthermore, especially in the final part, "The Black House" commits to an anti-capitalist epilogue that involves the revolt of the ghetto inhabitants against the "tormentors" of the upper-class, with a prophetic rain of dollars. The cast that makes up the film features names dear to the horror tradition: the young protagonist, Brandon Adams, will return in "Killer Machine"; Papi, Everett McGill, had already appeared in "A Company of Wolves" and in the series "Twin Peaks"; Mami, Wendy Robie, also seen in "Twin Peaks" and subsequently in "Vampire in Brooklyn" and "The Dentist 2". In conclusion, "The Black House" is a successful example of fairy-tale horror rich in references to the social condition that fuels the clashes/confrontations between classes; as well as a well-structured and rather entertaining film. To watch and re-evaluate.