And I thought my parents were crazy...
Join BP, Coop and Justin as we discuss The People Under the Stairs, the 1991 film directed by Wes Craven that is partially based on a true story.
Poindexter "Fool" Williams is a resident of a Los Angeles ghetto. He and his family are being evicted from their apartment by their landlords the Robesons. The Robesons, who are believed to be a married couple, call themselves Mommy and Daddy. They have a daughter named Alice, to whom they are extremely abusive.
Leroy, his associate Spencer, and Fool break into the Robesons' house by using Spencer to pose as a municipal worker. The Robesons leave the home shortly, but Spencer does not return. Fool and Leroy break into the house to look for Spencer and Fool finds his dead body and a large group of strange, pale children in a locked pen inside a dungeon-like basement.
The Robesons return and Fool flees while Leroy is shot to death by Daddy. Fool runs into another section of the house where he meets Alice. She tells him that the people under the stairs were children who broke the "see/hear/speak no evil" rules of the Robeson household. The children have degenerated into cannibalism to survive and Alice has avoided this fate by obeying the rules without question. A boy named Roach whose tongue was removed as punishment for having called out for help to escape (thus breaking the "speak no evil" rule enforced by Mommy and Daddy) also evades the Robesons by hiding in the walls.
Fool is discovered by Daddy and is thrown to the cannibalistic children to die. However, Roach helps Fool escape, but is critically wounded. As he dies, he gives Fool a small bag of gold coins and a written plea to save Alice. Fool reunites with Alice and the two escape into the passageways between the walls. Daddy releases his Rottweiler dog Prince into the walls to kill them. Fool tricks Daddy into stabbing Prince and he and Alice reach the attic where they find an open window above a pond. Alice is too afraid to jump and Fool is forced to escape without her, but he promises to return for her.
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Craven has stated that The People Under the Stairs was partially inspired by a news story from the late 1970s, in which two burglars broke into a Los Angeles household, inadvertently causing the police to discover two children who had been locked away by their parents. The film was a surprise commercial success, and has been analyzed for its satirical depiction of gentrification, class warfare, and capitalism.
Craven at one point said he would like to remake the film along with The Last House on the Left and Shocker. However, after the release of the 2009 remake of The Last House on the Left, news of a remake fell dormant until 2015, when it was announced (shortly before Craven's death) that the director was developing a People Under the Stairs TV series for Syfy.
On October 30, 2020, Collider reported that Jordan Peele and Win Rosenfeld signed on to produce a remake under Monkeypaw Productions for Universal Pictures.
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