Amy Petter- The People Under the Stairs(1991)

The People Under the Stairs

Director: Wes Craven

Year: 1991

            The People Under the Stairs is a comedy and a horror film. Wes Craven managed to make a plot that was frightening, but have the actors have rather humorous lines. The acting within the movie was rather poor, but it added to the funny, quirky feel of the film.

            From the beginning of the film to the end, the lighting was rather poor, especially in the house. It did give the film an eerie sense, but it also made it hard to watch. The beginning started off slow and didn’t seem to be connected. The film did not start to pick up until about 30 minutes into the movie.

            The film had many establishing shots of the ghetto, where main character, Fool, lived. The film had a great establishing shot of the building his family lived in that transformed into a moving shot up the flight of the stairs, showing how run down the building was and how many drug addicts occupied the building.

            The camera was seen through Fools eyes, as he was trapped in the building with his newfound friend, Alice. The camera angle shows him looking around and then from where he was standing, the camera would move around and make it looks like he was running.

            The zoom shot was used often, as they had a quirky sense of humor, but had a lot of gore. The “father” of Alice was shown cutting up Leroy and eating him. The camera zoomed in to show the blood and lack of intestines left in his body.

            Overall, I think this film was well composed for the genre of comedy and horror. Mixing those two together is a hard combination, but Wes Craven managed just fine.