Description
From low-budget cult-film director S.F. Brownrigg ("Don't Open the Door!," "Poor White Trash 2" and "Keep My Grave Open"), this gory little chiller takes place in an experimental hospital for the criminally insane where the creative thinking director allows several inmates to act out their psychotic delusions (you know, like - necrophilia, paranoia and popsicles). Things really start to get nuts when a new staffer arrives... starting with the bloody axe-murder of the doctor himself, and leading to a total takeover of this hallowed institution by its most crazy and violent inhabitants.
Bonus Features: Previews| Actor Bios| Scene Selection.
Specs: DVD5; Dolby Digital Mono; 90 minutes; Color; 1.33:1 Aspect Ratio; MPAA - R; Year - 1972; SRP - $9.99.
Customer Reviews:
This was actually good.......2007-01-20
I stumbled across this, and watched it last night. Despite its poor acting, and low budget setting, it really creeped me out. The idea of the story is just chilling, and the occurances of the film make you feel like you are losing your mind yourself. The last movie I saw that chilled me this much was 'The Legend of Boggy Creek.'
I can't look..........2006-12-21
The 1970s no-budget horror film seems to be a genre unto itself. Other eras have attempted to counter their lack of funds by introducing certain elements that -- while cheap to produce -- give the film something to offer. In the 70s, they just seemed to throw as much weird stuff as possible at the audience in hopes that some of it would stick.
As an illustration, let me describe for you the film's pre-credits sequence. At a secluded sanatorium for the mentally handicapped, the doctor in charge of the home is extolling the virtues of allowing one of his aggressive patients work out his negative emotions by shouting at him when he chops wood. Moments later, while turning to explain his theories to a bystander, he promptly takes an axe to the back of the neck with predictably bloody results.
A few moments later, a paranoid woman is guarding a child's doll, which she believes is her actual biological infant. The violent outburst she suffers when she thinks her baby has been taken concludes with the strangulation of a nurse.
I would find it difficult to spoil the plot, because until the last half hour the film really doesn't have much of one. The story is told from the point of view of a Nurse Charlotte Beale (Rosie Holotik, a fetching redhead who modeled for Playboy the previous year). Charlotte arrives during the opening credits and finds herself working in a mental ward full of crazy people (not surprisingly). She is introduced to the stereotypical group of movie mental patients, which include the army sergeant -- traumatized by the deaths of soldiers under his command -- who thinks he is still at war, a nymphomaniac, a middle-aged man convinced he's a judge on the court of appeals, an enormous black man who's had a lobotomy (the movie's gentle giant who loves popsicles and innocently blundering into the film's more disturbing sequences), and an elderly woman who warns of impending danger before apparently cutting out her own tongue.
As I indicated, most of the film doesn't revolve around a straightforward story. It's more a collection of individual strange scenes, most of which are seemingly unrelated to each other. The movie seemed so disjointed that at times I wondered if this was a deliberate artistic decision. I watched, theorizing if perhaps each scene was being told from the point-of-view of a different mental patient. I came to no definite conclusions, but I state at times it can be difficult to tell whether a director is going for something artsy and meaningful, or if he has simply just lost his mind.
I'm giving this film a slightly positive rating based solely on the fact that it didn't bore me. It puzzled me, confused me and disgusted me, but I can't say I was bored. Even the middle section which does drag on and on kept from being boring by becoming progressively more insane as time passed.
On the other hand, trying to take this seriously is an uphill endeavor (made more arduous by the fact that the film seems to take itself extremely seriously). Trying to find any logic to most of this stuff is next to impossible. To be fair, there is an extremely neat plot twist near the end. Part of my surprise was no doubt based on the fact that I hadn't even expected anything approaching cause-and-effect. But even starting with extremely low expectations, you can see moments where someone obvious put some thought into this.
The production itself looks very low-budget. I wouldn't be surprised if it was filmed in one of the production crew's parents' house over a three-day weekend. It's a very sparse set which gives the film a visually bleak flavor. It's a disturbingly claustrophobic feeling; the exact opposite of those 1950s horror movies that took place inside massive, spacious mansions with foreboding shadows. Here, you can immediately imagine trying to squeeze past one of the house's inmates in a narrow, too brightly-lit hallway while they make their way towards one of the bare, tiny rooms. It's depressing to watch even before you take into account the murders, the madness and the mayhem.
It's hard to tell if the picture and sound of Digiview Productions release are a decent reproduction. The image is often overly whitewashed, but that may have been what the original production crew intended.
However, there is some censoring present which will no doubt offend the purists. While a Digiview disc of a different movie that I watched simply pixelled out the nudity leaving the scene more or less intact, here they seem to have taken out the scissors and clumsily removed any frame containing the nude form (and possibly any frames which happened to be nearby). This renders one scene completely incomprehensible. We go straight from the beginning of a sex scene, jump to some random images of people's faces and end in one of the participants leaping up and down on a bed, laughing hysterically and flinging laundry out of a door. In any other movie this would appear odd; here, it seems about par for the course.
Presumably, the producers felt they could play fast and loose with logic, based on the idea that a movie about crazy people doesn't have to make any sense. It sort of works. While I can't see myself ever wanting to watch it again, I did enjoy the mental explosions that went off in my head as I tried to make some kind of sense of the images presented before me. This is not for the faint of stomach, or for anyone prone to headaches. But if the cinematic equivalent of a mental breakdown combined with 1970s horror gore is something that sounds appealing to you, then you should give this one a look.
Not bad at all.......2006-10-23
(3.5/5 stars) An alternate title for the film is "The Forgotten," which seems to fit this film's status rather well. Don't let the generic title or the probability that you've never heard of this movie deter you from watching it because it delivers rather satisfactorily. This is a very low budget horror film from 1973, starring no one you have ever seen before. Indeed, the acting is less than stellar, though it isn't bad and I have seen much, much worse. The lighting is rather poorly done, which isn't to say everything is dark; instead, everything seems to be lit by studio lights, or at least the first three-fourths of the movie are. That is about it for the negative aspects of the film, however. For the most part I found this to be a very pleasant surprise. The story, concerning a psychiatrist and the unorthodox methods he employs at his mental hospital, is quite good. Having forsworn lobotomies, after a botched operation, the good doctor develops an alternative methodology for treating disturbed individuals. He sees insanity as a complex series of obsessions, which can only be destroyed by a patient's own mental strength. Believing that no one is beyond help, he works with his patients to develop their strengths. Once he is no longer in a position to run the facility (and I won't say how), Dr. Masters assumes this responsibility. At this point, Nurse Beale arrives to begin her new position at the hospital and the viewer discovers the myriad characteristics of the place and its residents just as she does. I won't say this is very scary or a great movie by any means, though if you are looking for a pretty good story and can get past the unprofessional look of the movie, check it out.
This movie just doesn't have "it"........2006-10-15
Some movies are so low-budget and poorly produced that the viewer just cannot get over that fact to allow himself/herself to become emersed in the story. Such is the case with "Don't Look in the Basement". In fact, all of these "Don't look" movies seem to be very similar in this respect...they just do not have what it takes to be a good horror movie or even a decent horror movie for that matter. I was bored stiff while watching this trash because the movie has no spirit, no style and no substance either. "Don't Look in the Basement" is plagued by poor direction and atrocious acting.
Basically, "Don't Look in the Basement" is about an insane assylum where the doctors subscribe to rather radical methods of treatment. Truly, one wonders if the doctor is as crazy as the mental patients. Dr. Stevens' idea is that the only way to cure these mentally disturbed people is to allow them to act out their obsessions. However, the plot and storyline are very poorly developed, the movie's action fails to hold the viewer's interest and also struggles to some extent to provide the viewer with a clear understanding of what is actually going on in this movie. The only interesting aspect deals with Dr. Masters' role in this movie, and that is the only reason the movie is able to produce any kind of tension in the audience. However, this tension is clearly tempered or blunted by the movie's fatal flaws of awful acting, poor direction, poorly developed plot, low-budget production values, and a lackluster screenplay. Sometimes, these low-budget movies can be good and scary, but "Don't Look in the Basement" clearly is not one of them!
It really is good........2006-02-22
I have no complaints about any of the acting whatsoever. Also the direction is flawless and the vibe is genuine. A little disturbing too perhaps. Cement your dissension towards neo corporate cinema and add another gem to your collection with this one!
Description
Twice the screams...double the fear! It's the VCI's Grindhouse Special Edition Double Feature of "Don't Look in the Basement" and "Don't Open the Door." Don't Look in the Basement (1973) - Nurse Charlotte Beale arrives at the isolated Stephens Sanitarium to work, only to learn that Dr. Stephens was murdered by one of the patients and his successor, Dr. Geraldine Masters, is not very eager to take on new staff. Charlotte finds her job maddeningly hard as the patients torment and harass her at every turn; she soon learns why Dr. Masters is so eager to keep outsiders out. Don't Open the Door (1979) - In this horror movie, a dutiful granddaughter goes home to take care of her elderly grandmother. Once there, she finds herself trapped inside the house with a homicidal maniac.
Bonus Features: Scene Selection, Original Theatrical Trailers for both movies, Bios
Product Specs: DVD9; Dolby Digital; 185 minutes; Color; 16x9 Widescreen; MPAA -R; Year - 1973, 1979; SRP - $14.99
Average customer rating:
- A BIT BETTER THAN DECENT
- Horror Classics Vol. 8 - ID#12309
|
Horror Classics, Vol. 8: Don't Look in the Basement!/House on Haunted Hill/The Sphinx/Werewolf in a
Starring:
Great Horror Classics
Manufacturer: Platinum Disc
ProductGroup: DVD
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ASIN: B0000B1OB5
Release Date: 2003-07-23 |
Customer Reviews:
A BIT BETTER THAN DECENT.......2004-09-17
I've been suprised by the quality of some Platinum Disc Corp DVDs.
The only movie on this DVD that I thought had a subpar image was "Don't Look In The Basement." Colors were blurry and faded.
The other three were very nice, although "Werewolf..." had some hiss. "Werewolf..." was very watchable and suprisingly engaging. The director must have been influenced by the old Universal monster movies it has that same mood and look.
Horror Classics Vol. 8 - ID#12309.......2004-08-12
Four movies on one disc.
Horror Classics Vol. 8 - Platinum Disc ID#12309
#1: Don't Look in the Basement! - 1973 - Director: S.F. Brownrigg
#2: House on Haunted Hill - 1959 - Director: William Castle
#3: The House on the Edge of the Park - 1980 - Director: Ruggero Deodato
#4: Werewolf in a Girls Dormitory - 1961 - Director: Paolo Heusch
All in all; decent picture, decent sound. Nothing special, but menus all seem to work and thats rare for cheap compilation DVD's.
These movies are available individually from amazon, so you can see actual reviews and movie details if you search for the title under DVD's.
Customer Reviews:
This was actually good.......2007-01-20
I stumbled across this, and watched it last night. Despite its poor acting, and low budget setting, it really creeped me out. The idea of the story is just chilling, and the occurances of the film make you feel like you are losing your mind yourself. The last movie I saw that chilled me this much was 'The Legend of Boggy Creek.'
I can't look..........2006-12-21
The 1970s no-budget horror film seems to be a genre unto itself. Other eras have attempted to counter their lack of funds by introducing certain elements that -- while cheap to produce -- give the film something to offer. In the 70s, they just seemed to throw as much weird stuff as possible at the audience in hopes that some of it would stick.
As an illustration, let me describe for you the film's pre-credits sequence. At a secluded sanatorium for the mentally handicapped, the doctor in charge of the home is extolling the virtues of allowing one of his aggressive patients work out his negative emotions by shouting at him when he chops wood. Moments later, while turning to explain his theories to a bystander, he promptly takes an axe to the back of the neck with predictably bloody results.
A few moments later, a paranoid woman is guarding a child's doll, which she believes is her actual biological infant. The violent outburst she suffers when she thinks her baby has been taken concludes with the strangulation of a nurse.
I would find it difficult to spoil the plot, because until the last half hour the film really doesn't have much of one. The story is told from the point of view of a Nurse Charlotte Beale (Rosie Holotik, a fetching redhead who modeled for Playboy the previous year). Charlotte arrives during the opening credits and finds herself working in a mental ward full of crazy people (not surprisingly). She is introduced to the stereotypical group of movie mental patients, which include the army sergeant -- traumatized by the deaths of soldiers under his command -- who thinks he is still at war, a nymphomaniac, a middle-aged man convinced he's a judge on the court of appeals, an enormous black man who's had a lobotomy (the movie's gentle giant who loves popsicles and innocently blundering into the film's more disturbing sequences), and an elderly woman who warns of impending danger before apparently cutting out her own tongue.
As I indicated, most of the film doesn't revolve around a straightforward story. It's more a collection of individual strange scenes, most of which are seemingly unrelated to each other. The movie seemed so disjointed that at times I wondered if this was a deliberate artistic decision. I watched, theorizing if perhaps each scene was being told from the point-of-view of a different mental patient. I came to no definite conclusions, but I state at times it can be difficult to tell whether a director is going for something artsy and meaningful, or if he has simply just lost his mind.
I'm giving this film a slightly positive rating based solely on the fact that it didn't bore me. It puzzled me, confused me and disgusted me, but I can't say I was bored. Even the middle section which does drag on and on kept from being boring by becoming progressively more insane as time passed.
On the other hand, trying to take this seriously is an uphill endeavor (made more arduous by the fact that the film seems to take itself extremely seriously). Trying to find any logic to most of this stuff is next to impossible. To be fair, there is an extremely neat plot twist near the end. Part of my surprise was no doubt based on the fact that I hadn't even expected anything approaching cause-and-effect. But even starting with extremely low expectations, you can see moments where someone obvious put some thought into this.
The production itself looks very low-budget. I wouldn't be surprised if it was filmed in one of the production crew's parents' house over a three-day weekend. It's a very sparse set which gives the film a visually bleak flavor. It's a disturbingly claustrophobic feeling; the exact opposite of those 1950s horror movies that took place inside massive, spacious mansions with foreboding shadows. Here, you can immediately imagine trying to squeeze past one of the house's inmates in a narrow, too brightly-lit hallway while they make their way towards one of the bare, tiny rooms. It's depressing to watch even before you take into account the murders, the madness and the mayhem.
It's hard to tell if the picture and sound of Digiview Productions release are a decent reproduction. The image is often overly whitewashed, but that may have been what the original production crew intended.
However, there is some censoring present which will no doubt offend the purists. While a Digiview disc of a different movie that I watched simply pixelled out the nudity leaving the scene more or less intact, here they seem to have taken out the scissors and clumsily removed any frame containing the nude form (and possibly any frames which happened to be nearby). This renders one scene completely incomprehensible. We go straight from the beginning of a sex scene, jump to some random images of people's faces and end in one of the participants leaping up and down on a bed, laughing hysterically and flinging laundry out of a door. In any other movie this would appear odd; here, it seems about par for the course.
Presumably, the producers felt they could play fast and loose with logic, based on the idea that a movie about crazy people doesn't have to make any sense. It sort of works. While I can't see myself ever wanting to watch it again, I did enjoy the mental explosions that went off in my head as I tried to make some kind of sense of the images presented before me. This is not for the faint of stomach, or for anyone prone to headaches. But if the cinematic equivalent of a mental breakdown combined with 1970s horror gore is something that sounds appealing to you, then you should give this one a look.
Not bad at all.......2006-10-23
(3.5/5 stars) An alternate title for the film is "The Forgotten," which seems to fit this film's status rather well. Don't let the generic title or the probability that you've never heard of this movie deter you from watching it because it delivers rather satisfactorily. This is a very low budget horror film from 1973, starring no one you have ever seen before. Indeed, the acting is less than stellar, though it isn't bad and I have seen much, much worse. The lighting is rather poorly done, which isn't to say everything is dark; instead, everything seems to be lit by studio lights, or at least the first three-fourths of the movie are. That is about it for the negative aspects of the film, however. For the most part I found this to be a very pleasant surprise. The story, concerning a psychiatrist and the unorthodox methods he employs at his mental hospital, is quite good. Having forsworn lobotomies, after a botched operation, the good doctor develops an alternative methodology for treating disturbed individuals. He sees insanity as a complex series of obsessions, which can only be destroyed by a patient's own mental strength. Believing that no one is beyond help, he works with his patients to develop their strengths. Once he is no longer in a position to run the facility (and I won't say how), Dr. Masters assumes this responsibility. At this point, Nurse Beale arrives to begin her new position at the hospital and the viewer discovers the myriad characteristics of the place and its residents just as she does. I won't say this is very scary or a great movie by any means, though if you are looking for a pretty good story and can get past the unprofessional look of the movie, check it out.
This movie just doesn't have "it"........2006-10-15
Some movies are so low-budget and poorly produced that the viewer just cannot get over that fact to allow himself/herself to become emersed in the story. Such is the case with "Don't Look in the Basement". In fact, all of these "Don't look" movies seem to be very similar in this respect...they just do not have what it takes to be a good horror movie or even a decent horror movie for that matter. I was bored stiff while watching this trash because the movie has no spirit, no style and no substance either. "Don't Look in the Basement" is plagued by poor direction and atrocious acting.
Basically, "Don't Look in the Basement" is about an insane assylum where the doctors subscribe to rather radical methods of treatment. Truly, one wonders if the doctor is as crazy as the mental patients. Dr. Stevens' idea is that the only way to cure these mentally disturbed people is to allow them to act out their obsessions. However, the plot and storyline are very poorly developed, the movie's action fails to hold the viewer's interest and also struggles to some extent to provide the viewer with a clear understanding of what is actually going on in this movie. The only interesting aspect deals with Dr. Masters' role in this movie, and that is the only reason the movie is able to produce any kind of tension in the audience. However, this tension is clearly tempered or blunted by the movie's fatal flaws of awful acting, poor direction, poorly developed plot, low-budget production values, and a lackluster screenplay. Sometimes, these low-budget movies can be good and scary, but "Don't Look in the Basement" clearly is not one of them!
It really is good........2006-02-22
I have no complaints about any of the acting whatsoever. Also the direction is flawless and the vibe is genuine. A little disturbing too perhaps. Cement your dissension towards neo corporate cinema and add another gem to your collection with this one!
Description
This is a true tribute to the 70's collection of drive-in classics. KISS OF THE TARANTULA (1975), Susan discovers that mommy dearest is plotting to have dear old dad killed by her secret lover, who is also dad's brother, she places a tarantula in mommy's bed while she sleeps. And innocent looking Susan doesn't stop there, making good plot use of her father's mortuary and her creepy little playmates! DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT (1972) - This gory little chiller takes place in an experimental hospital for the criminally insane where the creative thinking director allows several inmates to act out their psychotic delusions. DON'T OPEN THE DOOR (1979) - A dutiful granddaughter goes home to take care of her dying grandmother. Once there, she finds herself trapped inside the house with a homicidal maniac and all hell breaks loose. Over 265 minutes filled with popcorn chomping terror.
Bonus Features: Scene Selection| Bios| Trailers| Anamorphic Widescreen Enhanced for 16x9 monitors on Kiss of the Tarantula & Don't Open the Door.
Specs: 3-DVD5s; Dolby Digital; 265 minutes; Color; 1.33:1/ 1.78:1/ 1.85:1 Aspect Ratio; MPAA - PG / R; Year - 1972, 1975, 1979; SRP - $14.99.
Customer Reviews:
This was actually good.......2007-01-20
I stumbled across this, and watched it last night. Despite its poor acting, and low budget setting, it really creeped me out. The idea of the story is just chilling, and the occurances of the film make you feel like you are losing your mind yourself. The last movie I saw that chilled me this much was 'The Legend of Boggy Creek.'
I can't look..........2006-12-21
The 1970s no-budget horror film seems to be a genre unto itself. Other eras have attempted to counter their lack of funds by introducing certain elements that -- while cheap to produce -- give the film something to offer. In the 70s, they just seemed to throw as much weird stuff as possible at the audience in hopes that some of it would stick.
As an illustration, let me describe for you the film's pre-credits sequence. At a secluded sanatorium for the mentally handicapped, the doctor in charge of the home is extolling the virtues of allowing one of his aggressive patients work out his negative emotions by shouting at him when he chops wood. Moments later, while turning to explain his theories to a bystander, he promptly takes an axe to the back of the neck with predictably bloody results.
A few moments later, a paranoid woman is guarding a child's doll, which she believes is her actual biological infant. The violent outburst she suffers when she thinks her baby has been taken concludes with the strangulation of a nurse.
I would find it difficult to spoil the plot, because until the last half hour the film really doesn't have much of one. The story is told from the point of view of a Nurse Charlotte Beale (Rosie Holotik, a fetching redhead who modeled for Playboy the previous year). Charlotte arrives during the opening credits and finds herself working in a mental ward full of crazy people (not surprisingly). She is introduced to the stereotypical group of movie mental patients, which include the army sergeant -- traumatized by the deaths of soldiers under his command -- who thinks he is still at war, a nymphomaniac, a middle-aged man convinced he's a judge on the court of appeals, an enormous black man who's had a lobotomy (the movie's gentle giant who loves popsicles and innocently blundering into the film's more disturbing sequences), and an elderly woman who warns of impending danger before apparently cutting out her own tongue.
As I indicated, most of the film doesn't revolve around a straightforward story. It's more a collection of individual strange scenes, most of which are seemingly unrelated to each other. The movie seemed so disjointed that at times I wondered if this was a deliberate artistic decision. I watched, theorizing if perhaps each scene was being told from the point-of-view of a different mental patient. I came to no definite conclusions, but I state at times it can be difficult to tell whether a director is going for something artsy and meaningful, or if he has simply just lost his mind.
I'm giving this film a slightly positive rating based solely on the fact that it didn't bore me. It puzzled me, confused me and disgusted me, but I can't say I was bored. Even the middle section which does drag on and on kept from being boring by becoming progressively more insane as time passed.
On the other hand, trying to take this seriously is an uphill endeavor (made more arduous by the fact that the film seems to take itself extremely seriously). Trying to find any logic to most of this stuff is next to impossible. To be fair, there is an extremely neat plot twist near the end. Part of my surprise was no doubt based on the fact that I hadn't even expected anything approaching cause-and-effect. But even starting with extremely low expectations, you can see moments where someone obvious put some thought into this.
The production itself looks very low-budget. I wouldn't be surprised if it was filmed in one of the production crew's parents' house over a three-day weekend. It's a very sparse set which gives the film a visually bleak flavor. It's a disturbingly claustrophobic feeling; the exact opposite of those 1950s horror movies that took place inside massive, spacious mansions with foreboding shadows. Here, you can immediately imagine trying to squeeze past one of the house's inmates in a narrow, too brightly-lit hallway while they make their way towards one of the bare, tiny rooms. It's depressing to watch even before you take into account the murders, the madness and the mayhem.
It's hard to tell if the picture and sound of Digiview Productions release are a decent reproduction. The image is often overly whitewashed, but that may have been what the original production crew intended.
However, there is some censoring present which will no doubt offend the purists. While a Digiview disc of a different movie that I watched simply pixelled out the nudity leaving the scene more or less intact, here they seem to have taken out the scissors and clumsily removed any frame containing the nude form (and possibly any frames which happened to be nearby). This renders one scene completely incomprehensible. We go straight from the beginning of a sex scene, jump to some random images of people's faces and end in one of the participants leaping up and down on a bed, laughing hysterically and flinging laundry out of a door. In any other movie this would appear odd; here, it seems about par for the course.
Presumably, the producers felt they could play fast and loose with logic, based on the idea that a movie about crazy people doesn't have to make any sense. It sort of works. While I can't see myself ever wanting to watch it again, I did enjoy the mental explosions that went off in my head as I tried to make some kind of sense of the images presented before me. This is not for the faint of stomach, or for anyone prone to headaches. But if the cinematic equivalent of a mental breakdown combined with 1970s horror gore is something that sounds appealing to you, then you should give this one a look.
Not bad at all.......2006-10-23
(3.5/5 stars) An alternate title for the film is "The Forgotten," which seems to fit this film's status rather well. Don't let the generic title or the probability that you've never heard of this movie deter you from watching it because it delivers rather satisfactorily. This is a very low budget horror film from 1973, starring no one you have ever seen before. Indeed, the acting is less than stellar, though it isn't bad and I have seen much, much worse. The lighting is rather poorly done, which isn't to say everything is dark; instead, everything seems to be lit by studio lights, or at least the first three-fourths of the movie are. That is about it for the negative aspects of the film, however. For the most part I found this to be a very pleasant surprise. The story, concerning a psychiatrist and the unorthodox methods he employs at his mental hospital, is quite good. Having forsworn lobotomies, after a botched operation, the good doctor develops an alternative methodology for treating disturbed individuals. He sees insanity as a complex series of obsessions, which can only be destroyed by a patient's own mental strength. Believing that no one is beyond help, he works with his patients to develop their strengths. Once he is no longer in a position to run the facility (and I won't say how), Dr. Masters assumes this responsibility. At this point, Nurse Beale arrives to begin her new position at the hospital and the viewer discovers the myriad characteristics of the place and its residents just as she does. I won't say this is very scary or a great movie by any means, though if you are looking for a pretty good story and can get past the unprofessional look of the movie, check it out.
This movie just doesn't have "it"........2006-10-15
Some movies are so low-budget and poorly produced that the viewer just cannot get over that fact to allow himself/herself to become emersed in the story. Such is the case with "Don't Look in the Basement". In fact, all of these "Don't look" movies seem to be very similar in this respect...they just do not have what it takes to be a good horror movie or even a decent horror movie for that matter. I was bored stiff while watching this trash because the movie has no spirit, no style and no substance either. "Don't Look in the Basement" is plagued by poor direction and atrocious acting.
Basically, "Don't Look in the Basement" is about an insane assylum where the doctors subscribe to rather radical methods of treatment. Truly, one wonders if the doctor is as crazy as the mental patients. Dr. Stevens' idea is that the only way to cure these mentally disturbed people is to allow them to act out their obsessions. However, the plot and storyline are very poorly developed, the movie's action fails to hold the viewer's interest and also struggles to some extent to provide the viewer with a clear understanding of what is actually going on in this movie. The only interesting aspect deals with Dr. Masters' role in this movie, and that is the only reason the movie is able to produce any kind of tension in the audience. However, this tension is clearly tempered or blunted by the movie's fatal flaws of awful acting, poor direction, poorly developed plot, low-budget production values, and a lackluster screenplay. Sometimes, these low-budget movies can be good and scary, but "Don't Look in the Basement" clearly is not one of them!
It really is good........2006-02-22
I have no complaints about any of the acting whatsoever. Also the direction is flawless and the vibe is genuine. A little disturbing too perhaps. Cement your dissension towards neo corporate cinema and add another gem to your collection with this one!
Average customer rating:
- This was actually good
- I can't look...
- Not bad at all
- This movie just doesn't have "it".
- It really is good.
|
Don't Look in the Basement
Starring:
Bill McGhee ,
Jessie Lee Fulton ,
Robert Dracup ,
Harryette Warren , and
Michael Harvey (IV)
Director:
S.F. Brownrigg
Manufacturer: St Clair Vision
ProductGroup: DVD
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ASIN: B0001GH7KE
Release Date: 2004-03-02 |
Customer Reviews:
This was actually good.......2007-01-20
I stumbled across this, and watched it last night. Despite its poor acting, and low budget setting, it really creeped me out. The idea of the story is just chilling, and the occurances of the film make you feel like you are losing your mind yourself. The last movie I saw that chilled me this much was 'The Legend of Boggy Creek.'
I can't look..........2006-12-21
The 1970s no-budget horror film seems to be a genre unto itself. Other eras have attempted to counter their lack of funds by introducing certain elements that -- while cheap to produce -- give the film something to offer. In the 70s, they just seemed to throw as much weird stuff as possible at the audience in hopes that some of it would stick.
As an illustration, let me describe for you the film's pre-credits sequence. At a secluded sanatorium for the mentally handicapped, the doctor in charge of the home is extolling the virtues of allowing one of his aggressive patients work out his negative emotions by shouting at him when he chops wood. Moments later, while turning to explain his theories to a bystander, he promptly takes an axe to the back of the neck with predictably bloody results.
A few moments later, a paranoid woman is guarding a child's doll, which she believes is her actual biological infant. The violent outburst she suffers when she thinks her baby has been taken concludes with the strangulation of a nurse.
I would find it difficult to spoil the plot, because until the last half hour the film really doesn't have much of one. The story is told from the point of view of a Nurse Charlotte Beale (Rosie Holotik, a fetching redhead who modeled for Playboy the previous year). Charlotte arrives during the opening credits and finds herself working in a mental ward full of crazy people (not surprisingly). She is introduced to the stereotypical group of movie mental patients, which include the army sergeant -- traumatized by the deaths of soldiers under his command -- who thinks he is still at war, a nymphomaniac, a middle-aged man convinced he's a judge on the court of appeals, an enormous black man who's had a lobotomy (the movie's gentle giant who loves popsicles and innocently blundering into the film's more disturbing sequences), and an elderly woman who warns of impending danger before apparently cutting out her own tongue.
As I indicated, most of the film doesn't revolve around a straightforward story. It's more a collection of individual strange scenes, most of which are seemingly unrelated to each other. The movie seemed so disjointed that at times I wondered if this was a deliberate artistic decision. I watched, theorizing if perhaps each scene was being told from the point-of-view of a different mental patient. I came to no definite conclusions, but I state at times it can be difficult to tell whether a director is going for something artsy and meaningful, or if he has simply just lost his mind.
I'm giving this film a slightly positive rating based solely on the fact that it didn't bore me. It puzzled me, confused me and disgusted me, but I can't say I was bored. Even the middle section which does drag on and on kept from being boring by becoming progressively more insane as time passed.
On the other hand, trying to take this seriously is an uphill endeavor (made more arduous by the fact that the film seems to take itself extremely seriously). Trying to find any logic to most of this stuff is next to impossible. To be fair, there is an extremely neat plot twist near the end. Part of my surprise was no doubt based on the fact that I hadn't even expected anything approaching cause-and-effect. But even starting with extremely low expectations, you can see moments where someone obvious put some thought into this.
The production itself looks very low-budget. I wouldn't be surprised if it was filmed in one of the production crew's parents' house over a three-day weekend. It's a very sparse set which gives the film a visually bleak flavor. It's a disturbingly claustrophobic feeling; the exact opposite of those 1950s horror movies that took place inside massive, spacious mansions with foreboding shadows. Here, you can immediately imagine trying to squeeze past one of the house's inmates in a narrow, too brightly-lit hallway while they make their way towards one of the bare, tiny rooms. It's depressing to watch even before you take into account the murders, the madness and the mayhem.
It's hard to tell if the picture and sound of Digiview Productions release are a decent reproduction. The image is often overly whitewashed, but that may have been what the original production crew intended.
However, there is some censoring present which will no doubt offend the purists. While a Digiview disc of a different movie that I watched simply pixelled out the nudity leaving the scene more or less intact, here they seem to have taken out the scissors and clumsily removed any frame containing the nude form (and possibly any frames which happened to be nearby). This renders one scene completely incomprehensible. We go straight from the beginning of a sex scene, jump to some random images of people's faces and end in one of the participants leaping up and down on a bed, laughing hysterically and flinging laundry out of a door. In any other movie this would appear odd; here, it seems about par for the course.
Presumably, the producers felt they could play fast and loose with logic, based on the idea that a movie about crazy people doesn't have to make any sense. It sort of works. While I can't see myself ever wanting to watch it again, I did enjoy the mental explosions that went off in my head as I tried to make some kind of sense of the images presented before me. This is not for the faint of stomach, or for anyone prone to headaches. But if the cinematic equivalent of a mental breakdown combined with 1970s horror gore is something that sounds appealing to you, then you should give this one a look.
Not bad at all.......2006-10-23
(3.5/5 stars) An alternate title for the film is "The Forgotten," which seems to fit this film's status rather well. Don't let the generic title or the probability that you've never heard of this movie deter you from watching it because it delivers rather satisfactorily. This is a very low budget horror film from 1973, starring no one you have ever seen before. Indeed, the acting is less than stellar, though it isn't bad and I have seen much, much worse. The lighting is rather poorly done, which isn't to say everything is dark; instead, everything seems to be lit by studio lights, or at least the first three-fourths of the movie are. That is about it for the negative aspects of the film, however. For the most part I found this to be a very pleasant surprise. The story, concerning a psychiatrist and the unorthodox methods he employs at his mental hospital, is quite good. Having forsworn lobotomies, after a botched operation, the good doctor develops an alternative methodology for treating disturbed individuals. He sees insanity as a complex series of obsessions, which can only be destroyed by a patient's own mental strength. Believing that no one is beyond help, he works with his patients to develop their strengths. Once he is no longer in a position to run the facility (and I won't say how), Dr. Masters assumes this responsibility. At this point, Nurse Beale arrives to begin her new position at the hospital and the viewer discovers the myriad characteristics of the place and its residents just as she does. I won't say this is very scary or a great movie by any means, though if you are looking for a pretty good story and can get past the unprofessional look of the movie, check it out.
This movie just doesn't have "it"........2006-10-15
Some movies are so low-budget and poorly produced that the viewer just cannot get over that fact to allow himself/herself to become emersed in the story. Such is the case with "Don't Look in the Basement". In fact, all of these "Don't look" movies seem to be very similar in this respect...they just do not have what it takes to be a good horror movie or even a decent horror movie for that matter. I was bored stiff while watching this trash because the movie has no spirit, no style and no substance either. "Don't Look in the Basement" is plagued by poor direction and atrocious acting.
Basically, "Don't Look in the Basement" is about an insane assylum where the doctors subscribe to rather radical methods of treatment. Truly, one wonders if the doctor is as crazy as the mental patients. Dr. Stevens' idea is that the only way to cure these mentally disturbed people is to allow them to act out their obsessions. However, the plot and storyline are very poorly developed, the movie's action fails to hold the viewer's interest and also struggles to some extent to provide the viewer with a clear understanding of what is actually going on in this movie. The only interesting aspect deals with Dr. Masters' role in this movie, and that is the only reason the movie is able to produce any kind of tension in the audience. However, this tension is clearly tempered or blunted by the movie's fatal flaws of awful acting, poor direction, poorly developed plot, low-budget production values, and a lackluster screenplay. Sometimes, these low-budget movies can be good and scary, but "Don't Look in the Basement" clearly is not one of them!
It really is good........2006-02-22
I have no complaints about any of the acting whatsoever. Also the direction is flawless and the vibe is genuine. A little disturbing too perhaps. Cement your dissension towards neo corporate cinema and add another gem to your collection with this one!
Product Description
House On Haunted Hill - Five individuals are offered $10,000 from a eccentric millionaire to simply spend a night in the his haunted mansion.
Don't Look In The Basement - A nurse learns a doctor was murdered at a sanitarium by one of the patients and obviously should stay the hell away from the basement.
Customer Reviews:
Two scary locales on one DVD.......2007-03-01
(Please note that I have individual reviews of the two movies on this disc available for reading at ASIN numbers B0002MINY6 and 6305459452.)
Companies that specialize in the release of public domain movies on DVD will often try to maximize their output by combining two (or more) titles on a single disc. It makes the already cheap disc appear to be even better value. The movies on a disc can often times be based on a theme: movies starring a particular actor, movies of the same genre, et cetera. On the other hand, some companies will pair utterly random seeming movies in hopes that at least one of the titles will appeal to some member of the audience (thus doubling their chances of the disc being bought). In this case, the conflating of HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL and DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT, the two films do share a very weak link. Ironically, the one thing that ties the two films together, also serves to demonstrate how utterly different they are.
The theme these two films share is their style of location. In HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL the setting is a spacious mansion being used by an eccentric millionaire for his strange kind of macabre game. DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT takes place in a large house which has been converted into a mental institution. Very often horror films will throw as much atmosphere as possible at their setting, in an attempt to make the background seem almost as real and as menacing as one of the characters. Both of these movies do something along those lines, and in doing so both reveal the strengths of the eras in which they were made.
HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL is a very typical 1950s horror movie, even down to the fact that it stars Vincent Price. Price has rented a supposedly haunted mansion and is offering a group of diverse characters $10,000 for each person who manages to survive the entire night there. The house does indeed become another character. Sure, it looks like a 1950s Hollywood set, but it's a set with secret rooms, mysterious cellars, and dark passageways (where the actor is always bathed in bright spotlights, yet always seems to be surrounded by utter darkness). The set dressing is very rich with all manner of half seen objects sitting on dressers or lying on tables. You could easily imagine a character quickly pulling a gun out of a drawer, or poison out of a cabinet. The clutter adds to the mystery. Some of the things we see will be important; others will be mere red herrings.
In stark contrast is the setting of DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT. While again we have a large structure with countless rooms, corridors and closets, this time the backgrounds are very sparsely adorned. Remember now that BASEMENT comes from the horror films of the 1970s where realism ruled. No longer are murders committed half-seen in mysterious shadows. If someone meets their demise via a chainsaw to the neck, then, by God, we're going to see every bit of sinew that comes flying out. And it's going to be brightly lit. And we're going to hear every scream.
The sanatorium in BASEMENT looks exactly how we expect a low funded mental hospital to look like. Exactly the way the filmmakers of HAUNTED HILL played on the expectations of a mysterious mansion. The fantasy of the 1950s gives way to the realism of the 1970s. The sets of BASEMENT are spacious enough, but the sparsity in decoration and the clinical, bright white walls make us feel almost claustrophobic, like the room is closing in on us. Whereas the grand fantasy of HAUNTED HILL causes us to imagine that there is some ghostly, evil presence lurking somewhere in the shadows, just out of sight.
Getting back to specifics about this DVD, of the two movies, I preferred HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL. Not because of any stylistic preference, but because I felt it told a better story (apart from the goofy ending) and did a better job of holding together. BASEMENT was just a little too incoherent for my tastes.
I got this disc for a buck, and for that money it's well worth it. The two movies are at least watchable, and are rarely boring. Sometimes with double features you'll get a bad movie stuck along with the one you actually want to buy, but in this case, both films are worth a look.
![[10 "Horror Movie" Pack] Don't Look in the Basement, Memorial Valley Massacre, Kill Baby Kill, The Demon, Hatchet Murders, Pieces, Silent Night Bloody Night, Night of Bloody Horror, Horror Rises From the Tomb, House of 1000 Corpses](http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/214XXAFF2TL.jpg)
Average customer rating:
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[10 "Horror Movie" Pack] Don't Look in the Basement, Memorial Valley Massacre, Kill Baby Kill, The Demon, Hatchet Murders, Pieces, Silent Night Bloody Night, Night of Bloody Horror, Horror Rises From the Tomb, House of 1000 Corpses
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD
General
| Horror
| Genres
| DVD
| Video
Product Features:
- Digitally Remastered For Superior Picture Quality
- Dolby Digital 5.1 Sound
- INTERACTIVE MENUS
- scene selections
- director commentary, audition footage, rehearsal footage, interviews
ASIN: B000GDTM7S |
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