All Rise...

You can look in Appellate Judge Daryl Loomis' basement; just know it's full of bats.

The Charge

The day the inmates took over the asylum!

The Case

I am extremely forgiving of 1970s cult horror films, but even I have my limitations. I can understand bad acting or poor special effects because of amateurish skill levels and shoestring budgets, but what I can't abide is laziness. For all of its forgivable problems, like budget and the rest, every part of the 1973 supposed cult classic, Don't Look in the Basement screams of laziness instead of terror. Truly, this is one of the more worthless horror films of its era to actually be remembered.

Nurse Charlotte Beale (Rosie Holotik, Horror High) has responded to a job offer at the Stephens Sanitarium. The trouble is that Dr. Stephens, who hired her, has been recently murdered by one of the inmates. When she arrives, everything seems relatively normal, except that the doctor's successor, Dr. Geraldine Masters (Annabelle Weenick, Common Law Wife), is strangely resistant to Charlotte taking her promised job. After the doctor relents, Charlotte takes to her room where she learns the absurd madness of the inmates, as well as how little oversight is placed on them. Soon, it becomes clear that the inmates are in charge and she has to figure out a way out before they come for her.

Now, technically, all of that actually happens in Don't Look in the Basement, but it strains credulity to really claim that there's anything resembling a plot in the movie. It's more of a character study than a horror movie, but that appears to have come totally by accident. In that way, it reminds me of William Peter Blatty's nutty masterpiece, The Ninth Configuration, but director S.F. Brownrigg (Don't Open the Door!) didn't have anywhere near the chops to make that happen.

Instead, it's just drags along as we go from room to room meeting the stock characters: the nymphomaniac, the woman who thinks a doll is her baby, the manchild, the deranged veteran and watching them act vaguely crazy while Rosie Holotik acts sort of terrified for no ostensible reason whatsoever. There's not even a dang basement; they couldn't even get that part right.

Don't Look in the Basement comes to DVD from Film Chest in a very mediocre edition that also, it happens, turns out to be the best edition of the movie released thus far. It's sad, I guess, but here we are. The film is presented in full frame and, while I don't know whether that's the original ratio, it seems unlikely given the time it was made. Regardless, it looks pretty bad, with murky colors and very inconsistent lighting. There isn't a ton of damage to the print but, if the note about digital restoration on the cover is actually true, very little was done to the print. The mono sound is noisy, with inadequately mixed dialog and music, making it often very hard to understand what's happening. There are no extras on the disc.

There is bad and fun, and then there are movies like Don't Look in the Basement, which are bad and boring, and there's basically nothing worse than that. A complete waste of time in every respect, it doesn't deliver on thrills or violence, just some eccentric characters performed very poorly. Don't get caught up in the film's cult status, there is absolutely nothing in the movie to justify it.

The Verdict

Guilty.

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