DONT LOOK IN THE BASEMENT~!!!!!

[Romero&Juliet]

perfectperfectperfect~!!

A bunch of psychos have free reign over their nuthouse when the resident doctor is killed. Their "father", who's certifiably nuts himself, practices a radical form of therapy: rather than supress
these psychos' impulses, he lets them act upon every nutty whim.. Killers can kill, Nymphos can fuck holes in the wall if they feel so inclined.

A nurse(some doe-eyed bitch), is hired immediately after the 'accident' to pick up the slack. Fit hits the shan.



This kind of low budget sleaze should serve as a reminder that the greatest horror flicks ever made were done with VERY limited resources: incompotent actors and crews, miniscule budgets. The end project, however, comes across as fully realized and fleshed out.. I cant explain that.... No one can! Its the sort of rare B-movie magic that isin't easily recreated..

TCM comes to mind.. In fact, by the end of the film I was drawing mucho similarities between the two: The actors themselves, who've been given VERY difficult parts, overact to the point where their proper illnesses are MORE than stressed.. for all we know, they may've been acting out the diseases accurately..? I seriously doubt it.. it was interesting, though..!

Remember the hitchhiker? Imagine a movie FULL of those crazy fucks..! Each of the patients are SO dammned nuts that it makes the outcome of the film really unpridictable; their motives are all muddled, if at all present(except the nympho, with whom, I think, anyone can relate to.. ).

The suspense nearly killed me! Watching the protagonist running through the nuthouse in search of one person able enough to break her out was about as harrowing as everyone's favorite 'hammer scene'.


I had watched this flick about five times before I really got a taste for it.. each time around, one of the patients' motives became clearer, or I had even begun relating to them. The twists themselves never got stale and they even shed a new light on the ending of the film.. you REALLLLLLLY need to see this thing. its a doooozie, schmoes.

[psycho path]

Is this the flick where at the end that big black guy licks the blood off the knife while crying about his mom? If so, I couldnt sit through it. Just hated it.

[Johnny582]

let me just tell you a lil something about this movie

THIS MOVIE ROCKS AHHGGGGGGGGGGGGGG \m/ devil horns \m/

i meen theres just a bunch of madness ,a bunch of fake blood, a bunch of nuts, like you can see anyone you know in each of these wackos. And the main horror good nurse like shes freaking hot and for a 1974 playboy playmate she did pretty good. i would defflenty wont here for my nurse id be all over here. and the big black guy LOL and the lady that needs to have sex all the time all the chicks in the moive remind me of my ex girl friend
This movie was wasing to be called THE FORGOTEN witch i think they should used cause the movie shows them being relentless and omost mindless but at the same time the drama of wackos is relentless and mindless and its sad , but the kills are GREAT and the nurse is HOT, 2 thumbs way up !
10/10
movie:10
blood:10
nude:4

overall 10 and 1/4

[PackBacker]

Don't Look in the Basement! 1973
aka The Forgotten


Directed by: S.F. Brownrigg
Written by: Tim Pope (The Crow: City of Angels)
Starring: Bill McGhee, Annabelle Weenick, Rosie Holotik

Tagline: They lived out their fantasies... Now they are dying for them!





Rating: 6/10


Plot: Dr. Stephens runs a very open insane asylum with treatment focused on releasing tension rather than drugs and restraints. That backfires when a patient lodges an axe in his back. Newly hired nurse Beale arrives the day after his murder and talks her way into staying. She gets a strange vibe from the place and feels that all is not what it seems to be....

Review: Every once in awhile while sifting through mounds of crap, you find a little diamond in the rough. This is a shoestring budget, quickie film that does it all right and makes do with what it has.

The back of my VHS version (yes VHS dammit!) has a quote claiming it to be "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" meets "Night of the Living Dead." Change out NOTLD and replace it with "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and I think they've got it. Don't get me wrong, the film doesn't compete on the level of any of those three movies but the vibe it gives off is reminiscient of them.

So our nurse (actually a former Playboy model) enters the nuthouse and really has an eclectic bunch to deal with. Patients include the axe wielding judge, a rambling old woman, a needy slut, the army guy, the afro guy who likes to scare people, and Sam the man-child among others. She's got her hands full to be sure.

The story, of course, has a twist that most people can probably see coming but I'll leave this one spoiler free. The film follows a languid pace until the twist and then it kicks into overdrive. The nuts get freaky and the blood starts flowing.

The acting is surprisingly good for an early 70s quickie picture. Bill McGhee really stands out as Sam the man with the IQ of an 8 year old (that lobotomy didn't work out right). He is superb and his role in the finale is particularly touching. Weenick does an admirable job pulling a 180 with little effort. Holotik shows that models can sometimes act. She's not Oscar talent but she's got the chops to pull off the terrified heroine. The supporting cast of crazies does a nice job of convincing everyone that they are a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

The directing job is a lot of pan and scan but we get a few extreme close-ups that are particularly disturbing. The close-ups are usually of afro-boy Danny and scared the hell out of me each time. That boy is freaky looking and can scream like a wounded possum.

The blood we see is pretty skimpy. What we do get, however, is quite effective with a splatter here and a splatter there. The movie hands us an axe in the back, a sharp object in the eye, a cut out tongue, and others. Good stuff!

I think the reason this one works while similar films fall flat is the acting. When you take a bunch of unknowns, the talent is generally not of a caliber that can pull off a semi-serious horror film. The cast this films brings does it and with flair. It's still a B movie but one that stands out among the crap with a little sweeter smell.