Rewind, film: 'The People Under the Stairs'

Brandon Adams, Everett McGill, Wendy Robie, A.J. Langer, Ving Rhames
Wes Craven

The staircase is a fear favourite in horror flicks, an oft-used haunted-house trope that acts as an obvious analogy for the plunge into metaphorical hell.

In 1991, horror maestro Wes Craven ( Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream) built an entire film around the concept: cult favourite The People Under the Stairs.

Based loosely on a true story, a black teenager called Fool (Brandon Adams) breaks into the house of his creepy landlords, who are trying to evict his family. But he quickly discovers they're actually incestuous sibling serial killers and the house is a maze of trap doors, hidden passageways and booby traps, all leading to the titular "people under the stairs".

Stairs was released during a strange period of horror in the early 1990s, when the genre was evolving from cultish creepy into mainstream camp through such films as Child's Play and Bram Stoker's Dracula. To audiences familiar with the genre, the film came off as confused and confusing, never quite sure what it wanted to be: seedy grindhouse flick? Modern fairytale about evil step-parents and hidden treasures? Satire of 1980s Reaganism and the class divide?

That mishmash might have caused the film to fail on its initial release, but endless late-night cable showings allowed new audiences to discover its highly original nature, sometimes to the point of pretension. Because while retrospective reviews harp on about how Stairs oh-so-seriously comments on racism and child abuse, its true appeal lies in its almost absurd ambience.