Horror has always been about more than jump scares, kill counts, and blood and guts. With the goal being to frighten the viewer, the genre is perfect for deeper messages about our society.Just about every horror movie you watch is political, whether you notice it or not. It doesn’t have to be as obvious as withJordan Peele’sGet Out. It can bethe unintentional subtext created about race inGeorge Romero’sNight of the Living Dead, or, for a more recent example, the issues of gender and gentrification inBarbarian. There’s a political message even in movies you wouldn’t think would have them.The Slumber Party Massacremight come across as another run-of-the-mill slasher, but it has a lot to say about gender as well and the fear women live in that brings them together.
The films ofWes Cravenare no different. Sure,he created iconic villains such as Freddy Kruegerand Ghostface inA Nightmare on Elm StreetandScream, but there’s something bigger happening underneath those finger knives and masks. In 1991,as horror entered a creative dry spell, Craven struck again, directing a film like audiences had never seen before.The People Under the Stairsis one of his best films, and without a doubt, it’s also his smartest.
The People Under the Stairs
Two adults and a juvenile break into a house occupied by a brother and sister and their stolen children. There, they must fight for their lives.
There Are Deeper Messages in Wes Craven’s Movies
Wes Craven is one of horror’s greatest directors, a man who terrified his fans for four decades before he passed away in 2015. While his films were shocking and meant to make us scream and recoil, he was also trying to get us to think, even from the beginning. His first movie,1972’sThe Last House on the Left, might be a rape revenge flick, but with its gritty, documentary style, it feels like we’re witnesses to the brutality.There are parallels there between those images and the shocking, grainy footage that was being shown on the news every nightduring the height of the Vietnam War. One was considered offensive even though it wasn’t real, while other images of young men dying in far away jungles were deemed fitting for the 6 o’clock news. In his follow-up,1977’sThe Hills Have Eyes, the plot is about more than a family being attacked by cannibals, as it speaks to the oppressed rising up against those who have kept them down.
Even Wes Craven’s two most popular works have deeper themes. In 1984’sA Nightmare on Elm Street, Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), a murdered child killer,haunts the nightmares of teenagers whose parents killed him. There is a dark message to be found about the blending of reality and dreams, of what’s important and what’s not, that teenagers go through, as well as them having to pay for the sins of what their parents did before them. In 1996’sScream, where someone obsessed with horror moviesbegins to act out their obsessions through murder,Craven is tackling a controversy that never goes away: does violent media turn teenage consumers into violent people?
What Is ‘The People Under the Stairs’ About?
The People Under the Stairsis quite a different film.It’s not a slasher likeScreamorA Nightmare on Elm Street(if you consider the latter to fall into that category), but that doesn’t make it any less horrifying. The plot revolves around a kid named Fool (Brandon Adams), who decides to rob the rich slumlord Robesons (Everett McGillandWendy Robie) so he can pay for his mother’s surgery. Everything goes wrong, however, when Fool and his accomplice, Leroy (Ving Rhames), find the people under the stairs: ghostly white, deformed kids locked in the basement.When the Robesons return, Leroy is killed and Fool is trapped.
The stakes are upped with the introduction of the Robesons' only “normal” child, a daughter named Alice (A.J. Langer). Fool needs to not only save his life now, but help Alice escape from her abusive parents. Nearly the entire film takes place inside the large Robeson home, with horror around every corner, as the Robesons will do whatever it takes to kill the intruder and keep Alice trapped. The climax ofThe People Under the Stairssees the title characters rise up, along with Alice, to kill Mrs. Robeson, before Mr. Robeson blows up the house, sending money into the sky, which rains down on the poor tenants who have gathered outside. It’s certainly an original creation by Craven, which he also wrote, and it’s also the one where he has the most to say.
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Even a horror master couldn’t sit still for this scene.
It only takes one watch to notice thatThe People Under the Stairsis a film about capitalism, classism, racism, greed, and gentrification. They arethe same themes that can be found inBarbarianthirty-plus years later. Those themes are not a reach, but have actually been confirmed by the man himself.In an interview with Arrow Video for a DVD release of the film, he spoke about the resistance to immigration in the United States. The Robesons have a lot of money but no true wealth, and they are after the perfect child that doesn’t exist. Craven added:
“It was just trying to get a handle on this idea that is sometimes, in my mind, part of sort of the Republican way of looking at the world. Very paternalistic, lots of guns, and thinking that the minorities are kind of dirtier and stupider, and the price of that, and how important it is to try to get our mind outside of that paradigm, and look at everybody as a potential resource to building our humanity.”
‘The People Under the Stairs’ Speaks to American Society and Politics
In 1991,George H.W. Bushwas President of the United States, but he had been the Vice President tothe man in charge before him,Ronald Reagan, and governed just like him. They believed in trickle-down economics, the idea that if you give the wealthy more through tax cuts, that it’ll trickle down to the classes beneath them.That greed is shown through the Robesons, with the couple called Mom and Dad. And who is seen sort of as the father of America but the President? The actors even look like the Reagans, especially Everett McGill. He’d already terrified horror fans a few years earlieras a religious man who turns into a werewolf inSilver Bullet, but he was even scarier as a psychotic, murderous slumlord, whom many assumed to be Wes Craven’s version of Ronald Reagan.
Although the parallels seemed intentional —with evenGene SiskelandRoger Ebertclaimingthe film’s antagonists were modeled after the President and First Lady —Craven firmly debunked that theory:
“It was meant as a political allegory. . . Siskel and Ebert claimed the two antagonists were meant to be Nancy and Ronald Reagan. That was not true, it was not meant to be that specific. They’re just conservatives, or actually people who would elect Nancy and Ronald.”
Still, the fact thatThe People Under the Stairstakes place almost entirely in a large houseis important, as the home represents America. The lower class are the people under the stairs, those deemed as less than, who have been banished for speaking out. It’s only Alice who isn’t sent to live in the basement and that’s only because she conforms and does as she’s told, though she lives in her own prison where she has no free will. As it turns out,these children aren’t even the offspring of the Robesons, but kids stolen from other parents.
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Gentrification, racism, classism, and capitalism are some of the ugly wounds formed in America in the 1980s, with communities like Brooklyn transformed by white people moving in, the war on drugs which largely targeted Black people, and the classism which saw a growing divide between the rich and the poor. InThe People Under the Stairs, the banished can only be freed when they rise up and defeat those who are holding them down. It’s a dark message, but wrapped in a film that’s wild and comic, and most importantly, entertaining. Wes Craven knew better than anyone that you couldn’t get an audience to listen if they weren’t already watching.
The People Under the Stairsis available to rent on Prime Video in the U.S.
