Highlighting the Homemade Horror of ‘The Basement’
According to the cinematographer, The Basement was shot in 22 days in 1989, and abandoned almost as quickly. Because it was first released in a box set with shot-on-video gems like Cannibal Campout, many people assume that it’s shot-on-video as well, which is not technically true, although it’s only one step above. The Basement was shot on Super-8, and abandoned by its director Timothy O’Rawe, who moved to Los Angeles before he even finished assembling what he had shot. It is the very definition of homemade horror, embracing the below-low-budget spirit, and because of that it is one that I recommend to anyone who doesn’t need much in the way of production value to have a good time.
The Basement was a movie I picked up in college because it had the greatest hook I’d ever heard: a previously unreleased movie from the ’80s, being released for the first time in 2011. It was like finding a favorite snack food you thought had been discontinued. That VHS actually came in a box set with a DVD and a few other films on DVD as well. Even though The Basement itself wasn’t shot on video it was my introduction to the world of shot-on-video horror. That set contained SOV titans such as Cannibal Campout and Video Violence.
But we’re just here to talk about one movie. The Basement is an anthology that lifts its wraparound very heavily from 1972’s Tales from the Crypt, except the action is set in, well, a basement instead of a mausoleum because that’s what they could afford. Make no mistake, it’s amateurish. It’s basically homemade. Seeing what they accomplished, given that, is absolutely a huge part of the appeal.
The first story revolves around a killer swimming pool. It’s easily the weakest both in terms of story and in terms of acting (although this is in general far from a cast of seasoned professionals) but I do love the idea of one person writing down their list of people to kill in a paperback copy of Stephen King’s Skeleton Crew and another person writing theirs down in a copy of Clive Barker’s The Books of Blood.
The second story is about a Halloween Scrooge of a teacher who hates children so much he fantasizes about killing his students, and is subjected to a parade of Halloween horrors. It’s one of the best of the movie. This guy sucks and there’s absolutely no illusion about how much he sucks. But I love how far they go with it. He hates Halloween, and his wife hated Halloween, and their disdain for children was one of the things that bonded them, but now she’s dead and he’s all alone. He even goes to her grave, not to express grief as much as tell her all about how much he’s going to scare the crap out of the little bastards. I really love that it even goes so far as to have her ghost appear, because this is naturally the Halloween version of A Christmas Carol. But she’s not telling him to change his ways because she was wrong to be so angry in life. She shows up to tell him that she’s burning in Hell and it’s absolutely horrible and that is so, so much more interesting.
The third focuses on a low-budget zombie movie that gets besieged by actual zombies. It’s terrific for including a cameo by Dead Next Door director J.R. Bookwalter wearing a Dead Next Door T-shirt. It’s meta horror long before the term was popularized, and done in such a way that you would never get away with in a wide release movie. This is just for the diehard horror fans, to the point that it almost feels like reading someone’s private journal about what they’d really like to do to those directors who wallow in horror to make a quick buck and don’t care about the “real fans.” To be fair, though, by 1989 the glut of low-budget ’80s horror often made by people just happy to have their first directing gig, had hit a fever pitch. And there’s something endearingly earnest about a vignette complaining about guys making low-budget trash who don’t give half a crap, made on a much lower budget than the films it’s complaning about. Anyway, this segment is about the director of a zombie movie getting torn apart by actual zombies.
The fourth is absolutely the most disturbing, about a man who moves into a house with a harrowing haunted past. There’s something terrifying about the way the house’s evil is represented visually, just eyes and exaggerated shark-like teeth on your own face, which looks incredible given the budget, and the man is besieged by horrible visions and night terrors and forced to confront the grim reality of who he is and the things he has done. The first story is the most hokey and it’s probably the most poorly placed, because it can sour you on the whole experience, but don’t let it. The stories are inventive and engaging for an amateur production and end on a really strong note.
For its complete and total lack of budget, The Basement boasts wildly impressive effects. The Mummy taking out someone’s tongue and putting it in his own mouth to say “Happy Halloween” is perfect. That’s exactly the vibe this movie hits at its most entertaining. It’s reason enough alone to watch this movie every October. Even the perhaps unintentionally laughable moments are charming. At one point when the October Scrooge is confronted by the rotting corpse puppet ghost of his dead wife, he says “I don’t believe it!” She rattles, makes a generic ’80s Halloween “toodleloodleloodle” sound effect and asks “Do you believe NOW?” As if that’s all it takes to convince him, and it is, because he then says “I do believe it! I must!” It’s truly an exchange that has to be seen to be believed.
The Basement has exactly the same appeal of walking through a neighbor’s homemade garage haunt on Halloween night. It’s not Halloween Horror Nights and it’s not trying to be, it has no illusions about being that and that’s good, because it scratches a completely different kind of itch.
