The People Under the Stairs Blu-ray Review

The People Under the Stairs Blu-ray Review

Released on September 2, 2014 by Universal Studios

Movie : 4/5

The People Under the Stairs has been finally released by Universal Studios here in the United States. Previously, this film had been released in the United Kingdom by Arrow. In their release they specifically say that the master used for their release had been provided by Universal. 

Out of all the horror films directed by Wes Craven, this is the first one I saw. They were playing it on TV and it must have made a vivid impression on me as I bought it later on DVD when I was still in middle school. I can not remember too well the first time I watched it, but I do remember seeing it countless more times once I owned it. Before watching it again, this most recent time, I adjusted my expectations. I remembered the movie was sort of campy, and given it was one of the earlier attempts by the director before Scream was released, I lowered said expectations… and I was pleasantly surprised. The movie can still hold its ground. It is still creepy, fun, suspenseful, and yes, it is still as campy as I remembered it, but now I see it is just part of what makes it a fun and scary little thriller. 

Fool (our antihero) is a child and the oldest sibling in an African-American family in which the mother is very sick. They do not have money for rent, and they only have a few days before they are evicted by the owners (a white couple). We then learn that the mother’s sickness can be easily cured, but since they do not even have enough money for her treatment, she just lays on bed, waiting to die. One of the neighbors in the apartment complex mentions to Fool that the owners of the building they live in (and of many other similar properties) have gold hidden somewhere in their house. He persuades Fool to agree to help him steal it, telling him the owners are filthy rich and thus do not need the money they are planning to get. If they are successful, he tells him, they will split the money and he will have enough for his mother’s treatment as well as for paying the rent for many years to come.

The neighbor brings along another burglar to help them. After a failed attempt by Fool to get into the owners’ house, the other burglar is successful, pretending to be a worker of the electric company. But then there is a problem: he is taking too long inside and he is neither coming out nor letting them inside. They force their way in, looking for their partner and the gold. Fool goes inside the basement and finds their partner dead with a golden coin in his hand. But there are scary-looking people in the basement’s walls. They seem deformed, with white skin and ghostly facial expressions. They begin the pull the body inside the walls, and Fool tries to pull him away, but he is only able to get the golden coin. The body disappears, being dragged into the walls by many pale hands. 

Then Fool runs up to the main floor, and him and his neighbor try to escape, but are then locked inside the house by the owners. From there on it is a non-top thrill ride as Fool tries to escape, going through trap doors, secret passageways, and different rooms which only make the house seem like a maze. He stumbles upon the owners’ daughter, Alice, a timid girl who seems scared of her own shadow. And as he keeps going deeper and deeper inside the house he uncovers other secrets the owners are keeping from their tenants, and the world in general. 

One of the things I noticed this time, after not watching it for many years until now, was the racial undertones in the story and the characters. The white couple are portrayed as evil rich people, almost representing the concept of “white supremacy”, especially when one thinks about how they are the owners of the places where Fool, his neighbor, and many other African-Americans live, thus holding a sort of power over them. They have allowed these properties to turn old and ugly, letting their tenants stay in these poor living conditions. Then they evict them to empty and destroy the buildings to sell the terrain for even more money. Another neighbor of Fool (also an African-American) organizes a group of tenants in a strike to get better treatment from the landlords. And Fool is our antihero, representing justice and a sense of good morality, because, even if he is trying to steal (albeit in a Robin Hood kind of way: getting money from people who do not need it, to help his mother instead of getting rich), he is ultimately trying to help Alice escape from the domestic abuse of her parents, prioritizing this above finding the money and above trying to escape alone to make the attempt easier on him. 

The racial bias is not as straight forward as it seems. Fool’s neighbor is an African-American as well and he is a thief. He steals not to help a sick family member, but simply to get money the easy way. Alice is white, and she is innocent with a pure heart that is full of compassion and is not in any way selfish. As you can see the racial undertones are not all biased to one side or the other. It is enough to portray the injustices of the white landlords over the African-American tenants, but still include different people in both groups to keep it more real and not all biased to one of the sides or the other; almost like a balance that I think actually helps to enforce the story and also layers it to make it more than just a scary movie. 

Spoilers ahead…

I will finish this section by saying that Fool is only a child, but this foolish, innocent heart of a child is what enables him to escape. But instead of staying safe, far away from the house, he goes back for Alice, and while doing so he stumbles upon the money. He manipulates the situation and all his neighbors get a share of it (justice for the bad treatments of the landlords), and he even helps the people under the stairs escape (after finding out the couple had them as prisoners), who in turn help him and Alice escape (Alice knew about them being prisoners, and she also tried to help them). All in all a very satisfying movie. 

Picture Quality: 3.5/5

The People Under the Stairs video quality is a little underwhelming. While there are some fairly good positives to the transfer, there are also some bad ones. Only one of these is the main culprit for the lowered score. Otherwise it would received a very solid 4 or even a 4.5. As it stands it barely manages to grab a 3.5. If it was not for the positives that I was not expecting it would have received a 3. This main culprit is noise created by some kind of digital processing. This noise is present from start to finish, messing with the natural grain of the movie and the detail. The good news is this noise is not enough to make it unwatchable. The upgrade from the DVD is obvious, and some detail is retained even with the weird digital noise present. Shadow detail reveals a good amount of textures. Colors stay real and well saturated. Skin colors look as they should (even the white skin of the people under the stairs) and hardly ever waver. Contrast is decent but it does fluctuate a bit, but never to the point that it messes up the quality. Blacks are good also. All these surprised me given it is an old film, considering that this is probably an old master, and knowing that the film was obviously made on a low budget. The only other problems were traces of slight print damage (light white and black specks peppered throughout the film) but they are not too noticeable. Honestly, given the fact that the movie is not that well known I am surprised Universal even released a blu-ray version of it. I was about to import the Arrow version when I heard about this release. Overall it is a little better than mediocre quality: unexpected positives and a problem of moderate size (the noise). Chances are most people will not mind it though, and even less so when seen on a smaller display where the appearance of this noise will be somewhat reduced because of the smaller display size. 

Sound Quality: 4/5

Universal has included only the original stereo mix in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. Better news here: the mix contains some respectable amplitude in terms of volume range while keeping the sounds clear without becoming distorted. This surprised me as most old films have a more “boxy” quality to their sound and their range is pretty limited. I would have loved a 5.1 lossless re-mix (if done correctly of course, included along with this one), but the original mix is certainly good enough. Using my receiver’s Dolby Pro Logic IIx sound mode, the voices sounded fairly centered with a little bleed to the front left and right speakers, allowing for more separation between the elements. The voices sounded very clean and I do not remember any instances where they sounded bad. The only complain here would be mild sound artifacts (more likely due to the limitations of the production). 

Special Features: N/A

No special features are included.

Overall: 3.5/5

This blu-ray transfer of The People Under the Stairs is a nice upgrade from the DVD. It could have looked better and some special features would have been nice (like a commentary by Wes Craven). But given it is not popular nor recognized I am still glad it got the upgrade. The film holds up well even by today’s standards considering its low budget production. Unless a better version comes along from another country and distributor, this blu-ray comes recommended, given of course this movie is your cup of tea. 

Note: the screen captures of the blu-ray above should not be taken to be good representatives of the quality of the transfer as they have a lower resolution than the blu-ray, they are compressed, and in motion it may look different.