Wes Craven.  It is amazing how many classic horror movie titles the name brings to mind: Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream.  However, there is one title that doesn’t usually come to mind for most people, yet in my opinion it is one of his best movies ever made, one that I personally feel is better than Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes and A Nightmare on Elm Street, that movie being The People Under the Stairs.  Now, I don’t know why this movie always seems to get lost when talking about great horror movies, but have a feeling it is a result of the subject matter, one which almost seems too real and which is something most American’s don’t want to be reminded of when going to see or when renting a movie.  What is that subject matter?  Child abuse, something which happens every day, but which most don’t want to hear about,

the term Closed Door Violence coming to mind because many are able to walk right by this violence and push it from their minds as long as there is a closed door between them and it.  Due to this I have to wonder if the remake of this movie, which I have heard Wes Craven is very interested in doing, will tone down that subject matter a bit, or if maybe presenting it to the world again on the big screen, especially now that his name is so recognizable, will bring better attention to it.  Time will only tell.I first saw The People Under the Stairs back when I was a freshman in high school (actually I had seen a few minutes of it before my freshman year but my Dad made me turn the channel even though I was interested, which was funny because the only reason I had even known the movie was on was because my Mom and little brother were watching it while out of town together and had called me to tell me a really creepy movie was on).  The movie was being shown on TNT during Joe Bob Briggs MonsterVision, which is a show that I wish was still on the air (if TNT ever decided to put all of his shows on DVD, I would be the first in line to buy it), during my Christmas break.  Everyone else in the house was asleep, so I had the entire basement TV area to myself.  

The movie didn’t scare me (few things did at that point in my life), but it did keep me on the edge of my seat, my heart racing throughout all of it, my mind wondering what other horrors the poor thirteen year old would-be burglar would run into, and whether or not he and the young girl Alice would be able to get out of the house alive.  I also loved the idea of having a house like that, not one filled with mutilated prisoners, but one that had all those secret passages and tunnels, one where a person could hide in for days without ever being discovered.  Perhaps the biggest thing that stuck with me, however, was the idea that a house like that could exist beneath the noses of everyone around it, a house where the people living inside had no knowledge of the outside world, and the outside world no knowledge of them.  It also brought to light the idea that one doesn’t have to have a supernatural element in a horror story to make it frightening, something which stuck with me once I decided to become a horror writer myself.

Most people don’t know about this movie, but it will always be one of my favorites, one which I think others will enjoy once they actually sit down to watch it, their minds probably wondering why they had never seen it before and then encouraging others to watch it as well.  So, if you are in the mood for a good horror movie but don’t know what to rent and have never seen this one before, give it a try.