MOVIE REVIEW : What’s Under the Stairs Is Not for Children

No matter how negatively you may have felt about such landmark Wes Craven horror films as “The Last House on the Left,” “The Hills Have Eyes” and the original “Nightmare on Elm Street,” you find yourself unable to deny that “The People Under the Stairs” (citywide) is anything but a terrifically effective scare show, a virtuoso work of cinematic terror incorporating superior cinematography and production design--and, most important of all, comic relief.

Still, it’s absolutely not for youngsters--even though it stars two engaging young people.

Spunky Brandon Adams plays a smart, resourceful ghetto kid who has a 13th birthday he’ll never forget. His mother will die unless there’s money for cancer surgery, his family is being evicted from its tenement for a redevelopment project, and he’s pressured into accompanying his older sister’s boyfriend (Ving Rhames) and his pal (Jeremy Roberts) into breaking and entering their slumlord’s splendid but decayed Edwardian mansion to steal a collection of gold coins. As the title implies, there’s more in the cellar than hidden treasure.

It doesn’t seem possible that any youngster could be worse off than Adams’ Fool (who’s anything but). Yet upstairs in the mansion, which turns out to be more fortified than Fort Knox, is a pale, pretty teen-ager named Alice (A.J. Langer), who has never been out of the house and is routinely beaten for the slightest infraction by her crazed parents from hell, the slumlord (Everett McGill) and his wife (Wendy Robie).

In essence, the film is “The Old Dark House” plot--complete with secret passages and all manner of mechanical trickery--revved up for the ‘90s with maximum gore and fright tactics via superior special effects, and presented as an allegory on the evils of greed, racism and child abuse. Craven displays a genuine and all-crucial mastery of shifts in tone: outside the mansion everything is very real, as represented by the desperate plight of Fool’s family; inside, everything is a nightmare, bizarre in the extreme, sparked by McGill and Robie’s deliberately hilarious over-the-top performances.

Balancing these exceptionally monstrous adults beautifully are Adams and Langer’s appealing and courageous young people. But be warned: don’t go to “The People Under the Stairs” (rated R for terror and violence) unless you like your horror pictures with very few holds barred.

‘The People Under the Stairs’

Brandon Adams: Fool

Everett McGill: Man

Wendy Robie: Woman

A.J. Langer: Alice

A Universal presentation of an Alive Films production. Writer-director Wes Craven. Producers Marianne Maddalena, Stuart M. Besser. Executive producers Shep Gordon, Wes Craven. Cinematographer Sandi Sissel. Editor James Coblentz. Costumes Ileane Meltzer. Music Don Peake. Production design Bryan Jones. Art director Steven Lloyd Shroyer. Set decorator Molly Flanegin. Sound Donald Summer. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

MPAA-rated R (for terror and violence).