The People Under the Stairs
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| The People Under the Stairs | |
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 The People Under the Stairs poster |
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| Directed by | Wes Craven |
| Produced by | Shep Gordon, Wes Craven, Marianne Maddalena, Stuart M. Besser |
| Written by | Wes Craven |
| Starring | Ving Rhames, Brandon Adams, Everett McGill, Wendy Robie, A.J. Langer |
| Music by | Don Peake |
| Cinematography | Sandi Sissel |
| Editing by | James Coblentz |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 1991 |
| Running time | 102 min |
| Country |  USA |
| Language | English |
| IMDb profile | |
- This article is about the film. For the underground hip-hop group, see People Under the Stairs.
The People Under the Stairs is a 1991 horror film, directed by Wes Craven and starring Ving Rhames, Brandon Adams, Everett McGill, Wendy Robie, and A.J. Langer.
The People Under the Stairs is an amalgamation of the classic fairytale and classic horror.
[edit] Plot
The main character, a young boy by the name of Poindexter (nicknamed Fool) has just learned that he and his family have been evicted from their apartment located in a ghetto for being three days late paying the rent. An urban street thug named Le Roy offers Fool help by enlisting him to help pull off a burglary of his landlord's residence, rumored to contain a wealth of gold coins.
Fool entertains this idea and subsequently agrees to join LeRoy and his accomplice Spencer. It is at this time that Fool begins to hear rumors that the landlords, credited in the film as merely "Mom" and "Dad", may be more than what he had in mind. An uncle informs Fool that the landlords' family – whose house was originally a funeral home – have been incestuously procreating through the years, becoming more insane with each passing generation.
When Fool and his accomplice finally do break into the house they are astonished at the interior: a mixture of over-the-top security, disgust, and death. During this foray into the house, things go very wrong when the man and woman return home and catch the intruders, killing one of them with a high-caliber pistol and then dancing around the corpse.
In an attempt to escape, Fool meets a young girl by the name of Alice. Bearing a resemblance to Alice from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, she is the embodiment of innocence. Alice informs Fool that her "parents" searched for a long time for the perfect child but they all "ended up bad". In addition, the only way to survive in this environment is to "hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil".
Alice helps Fool in an escape attempt through the rafters and wallspaces of the building, which succeeds, but Alice is left behind to be punished for her role in helping Fool escape. Upon escaping, Fool promptly dials 9-1-1 from a public telephone and reports that child abuse is occurring at the home he has just escaped from. Subsequently, the police arrive and are welcomed by a vast charade put on by the man and woman. Alice is kept hidden and the couple put forth the illusion of old-fashioned, strict, but very normal suburban living, even offering the officers coffee and cookies. The police, having been satisfied that no abuse is occurring, promptly leave.
Fool, having escaped, returns to the house to save Alice from her miserable existence. A group of zombie-like people break loose from the stairs and attack The Woman, who meets her end by Alice's hands as she stabs her. Fool is promptly met by the shotgun-toting father donning a full leather BDSM suit. Fool's plan, aided by the man's supply of explosives in the basement, eventually succeeds and he and Alice escape with a dozen children who have been kept under the stairs because they were, in the words of Alice, bad.
And as for the collective money belonging to the misanthropic people, it was blown out of the house by the chimneys and soon was taken by a massive horde of people who had all been cheated of their money.
[edit] Remake
In September 2006, director Wes Craven, with his production company Midnight Pictures and Rogue Pictures, announced a remake of The People Under the Stairs, along with The Last House on the Left and Shocker, each with a budget of approximately $15 million. [1]
