Another late night, another trashy nineties horror watched with absolutely no regrets. Well, except for actually sitting through the damn thing. See “The People Under The Stairs” presents itself as this socially conscious horror movie about racial oppression, with a new type of horror from mastermind Wes Craven. The reality is a terribly written take on the haunted house story devoid of logic and character.

Seriously this thing comes across more as a zany cartoon than a horror movie. Don’t believe me, Jesus Christ, let’s walk through it. Ving Rhames speaks like a broad idiotic stereotype, and despite walking around like a major badass, he’s scared half to death by a grandfather clock, and attacked by a dog where he’s driven to tears in an instant.

That’s not the fucking worst part. Early in the film, Ving Rhames deliver’s his most prolific line yet, after laying face first in a fucking hole in the wall. Listen for the voice cracks, stay for the insightful quotes.

Look, just for the record. I find Evertt McGill to maybe be a victim in all this, more so than Wes Craven. His performance as Man is downright laughable. His dialogue is atrocious and his dedication to the performance is astounding. I mean for a chunk of the film he’s in a full gimp outfit.

“I regret nothing.”

But I’m digressing. See, the film is about a boy known as The Fool, who’s from this mythogically terrible place called “the ghetto” where wild dogs fight in slow motion to sexy saxophones. (No, Really.) He decides to break into the house of his mysterious landlord, a fortified prison of sorts that houses a collection of mysterious people inside the walls, and beneath the stairs. Their sexual moans echo throughout the basement. When The Fool is trapped and pursued by Man, to quote the film “the only way out, is in.”

That premise may not sound so bad. But I assure you this film is a strange nineties cartoon version of a horror film, that takes itself far too seriously. Some great examples are:

Expressions like this.

Dialogue lines like these.

Or just this scene entirely.

Seriously the sound effects are schlocky and the entire message is muddled that it’s trying to communicate when it’s revealed that it was just 80’s metalheads left over from the painful transition to the nineties who actually dwelled under the stairs.

Last known location: Rock in Rio 85′

But the film does end with the entire block full of black people from the ghetto dancing in the street right after the house explodes into money thanks to an exploding stick of dynamite jerry-rigged together by the Fool.

Please spare yourself the pain, and don’t succumb to watching this piece of shit because Wes Craven’s name is attached. It’s not the man we once knew from Last House on the Left, it’s a cheap parody he became.

If for some reason you still want to see the film, here’s the best trailer I can find.