The People Under the Stairs

I distinctly remember watching the trailer to this film as a kid and, in my ignorance, thinking to myself that this must be one of the scariest movies ever made. In every town there is house which the adults rumor about and the children pass by on the other side of the street. In this town, they have good reason. It concerns a family that must be one of the creepiest, over-the-top religious fanatics ever put to the screen. I say religious -- yelling "burn in hell!" to everyone constitutes as religious, doesn't it? The family is like the worst parts of the mother in Carrie and the family in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. No one does this kind of film like director Wes Craven. Anyway they man and woman are brother and sister (the man occasionally dresses like that leather-clad retard slave to the hillbilly in Pulp Fiction and sometimes shoots his shotgun in the house). Over the years they have stolen various neighborhood children and have them locked up in the basement turning them into pseudo-vampires that can only feed on the occasional corpse of an unluck passer-by. Sound pleasant so far? Well, Craven brings a touch of class and respectability to what is mostly just excessive sleaze. It's too over-zealous for its own good. It's occasionally entertaining, but not one that is destined to become a holiday classic.