DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT (1973)

Studio:       Film Chest Media
Director:    S.F. Brownrigg
Writer:       Tim Pope
Producer:  S.F. Brownrigg
Stars:     William Bill McGhee, Jessie Lee Fulton, Robert Dracup, Harryette Warren, Michael Harvey, Jessie Kirby, Hugh Feagin, Betty Chandler, Camilla Carr, Gene Ross, Ann MacAdams, Rosie Holotik, Rhea MacAdams

Review Score:

---

Summary:

Arriving after the death of the facility’s lead doctor, the new nurse at Stephens Sanitarium discovers that the inmates have their run of the asylum.

---

Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

At Stephens Sanitarium, patient Oliver W. Cameron, who was a judge before being committed, buries an ax into the neck of Dr. Stephens. Dr. Geraldine Masters sees the commotion and takes over the situation by trying to calm Oliver. Already planning on leaving the facility out of fear for her safety, nurse Jane St. Claire is then murdered by patient Harriett when the doll Harriett treats as a real child goes missing.

New nurse Charlotte Beale arrives at the sanitarium to begin her employment, but Dr. Masters has no knowledge of her having been hired. Charlotte explains that Dr. Stephens hired her, but must not have informed Dr. Masters. Dr. Masters explains that Dr. Stephens is dead as she tries dismissing Charlotte. When Charlotte intimates that she will attempt to get her old job back by explaining what happened at Stephens Sanitarium, Dr. Masters reluctantly accepts Charlotte as a new staff member.

Charlotte meets Oliver and Harriett as well as the other patients, including slow-witted Sam, kleptomaniac prankster Danny, nymphomaniac Allyson King, despondent Jennifer Downey, shellshocked soldier Sergeant Jaffee, and Mrs. Callingham, an elderly woman prone to hallucinations. Charlotte also learns that Dr. Stephens’ philosophy was to let inmates roam freely while indulging in their psychoses.

Charlotte discovers that the phone in her room does not work. Unbeknownst to her, someone cut the line. While doing her morning rounds, Charlotte finds Mrs. Callingham with her tongue cut out. Dr. Masters attributes it to self-mutilation.

Telephone repairman Ray Daniels arrives at the sanitarium to fix the phone line. After Ray encounters Oliver and Mrs. Callingham, Dr. Masters directs Ray to the utility closet. Allyson corners Ray in the closet and forces him to say that he loves her. Rays tries rebuffing her seduction, but she closes the door on the two of them as she forces herself on him.

Unprovoked, Jennifer attacks Charlotte with a knife until Dr. Masters stops her. Dr. Masters finds her desk ransacked and later finds a file with her name on it in Sergeant Jaffee’s room. Dr. Masters burns the paper and forces Jaffee to hold it.

Sam tells Charlotte that he still speaks to Dr. Stephens. Sam gives Charlotte a wristwatch and says that the doctor wants to help her if she will accept the watch. Danny later assaults Charlotte in her bed. Oliver chases Danny away with an ax.

An inventory count reveals drugs missing from the sanitarium’s supplies. Dr. Masters finds the drugs in Jennifer’s room and confiscates them. When Jennifer goes in search of the drugs, someone kills her.

Sam finds Ray Daniels’ body in the utility closet and shows Allyson. Allyson goes into hysterics. While Charlotte tries calming her, Allyson claims that Dr. Masters is the person who killed Ray and cut out Mrs. Callingham’s tongue. Allyson explains that Dr. Masters was always a patient who Dr. Stephens allowed to pretend was on his staff. Mrs. Callingham confirms Allyson’s claim. Oliver also confirms it, although he additionally suggests that Charlotte has been a delusional patient all along, too.

Allyson attacks Dr. Masters with a syringe that the doctor tries using on her. Allyson then drags Ray’s dead body into her bed, under her delusion that the two of them are in love.

Sam gives Charlotte a message purportedly from Dr. Stephens and offers to help her find a way to escape the locked building through the basement. A man grabs at Charlotte in the cellar. Startled, Charlotte beats him to death only to discover that the man was actually a gravely injured Dr. Stephens.

Dr. Masters directs Sam to capture Charlotte, which he does because he believes she killed Dr. Stephens. Before the attack on Charlotte can be completed however, Sam has a flashback to Masters assisting in an operation on him back when she was a real doctor and he realizes that she is manipulating him. Sam releases Charlotte and helps her escape the sanitarium.

After Sam and Charlotte leave the room, the other inmates enter and butcher Dr. Masters to death. Sam returns and murders all of the remaining inmates except for Mrs. Callingham.

---

Review:

Arriving for her first day of work at Stephens Sanitarium, new nurse Charlotte Beale is shocked to learn that her employer is dead.  New administrator Dr. Geraldine Masters is just as shocked to discover that Dr. Stephens brought a new RN aboard without giving her a head’s up first.  But seeing as how the previous nurse was also murdered alongside Dr. Stephens by one of the resident lunatics, this privately-run rural asylum could use a plus one on its staff.

Dr. Masters reluctantly welcomes Charlotte to the now two-woman team and introduces her to the inmate roster of assorted creeps and crazies.  What begins as puzzlement over the peculiar policy of letting patients roam as they please quickly turns to terror when Charlotte witnesses their habits of holding axes and knives, usually over her head.  Something sinister is afoot in this strange sanitarium, and it might have something to do with whatever secret hides in the cellar.

Making the drive-in rounds in 1973 under an odd slew of titles including “The Forgotten,” “Beyond Help,“ “The Snake Pit,” and “Death Ward #13,” “Don’t Look in the Basement” ultimately settled on the title for which it is best known, even though it gives away a big hint regarding the film’s climax.  Of course, with all the promotional materials hyping the story as “the day the insane took over the asylum,” the film might not be terribly concerned with keeping its “twist” in the shadows anyway.

SPOILERS

Perhaps the inmates-running-the-asylum branding was still fresh in my mind.  But when act one introduced each character by showing his/her particular fantasy personality, e.g. the sergeant wearing the soldier’s helmet, the “mother” cradling a plastic doll, and the man referred to as “judge,” I just assumed from the start that Dr. Masters was another inmate playing at being something she wasn’t.  It’s probably important to mention this because “Don’t Look in the Basement” may work better as a suspense shocker when that reveal remains a surprise.  For me, it was a laborious patience game waiting for Charlotte to catch on.

A better moment comes when it is suggested that nurse Charlotte may actually be an inmate playing make-believe, as well.  If for no other reason than it is the first time the script makes some sort of sense in possibly explaining her dim-witted behavior.

One inmate comes at Charlotte with a knife while she innocently irons clothes in her bedroom.  Another night, Charlotte wakes to find one inmate on top of her and one more holding an ax at her bedside.  Any one of these near-fatal incidents is cause for concern over the facility’s “no locked doors” policy, let alone reason to point a taxi’s taillights at the building.  But Charlotte has yet to even give a second thought to the phone line that has been cut since her arrival, despite repeated attempts at using the blasted thing.

END SPOILERS

Speaking of the phone line, the telephone repairman has a brain cracked worse than any asylum inmate’s.  Given how befuddled he is by everyone’s bizarre behavior upon his arrival, it seems evident that he completely missed the huge “Stephens Sanitarium” sign while pulling into the driveway.  He confirms his obliviousness by then asking, “how come you people didn’t call about your telephone?  It can’t be working!”  Doesn’t that answer your own question?

The acting is creepily cheesy enough to pass as moderately endearing, while the technical execution is as low-grade as low-budget comes.  Dialogue sounds as if it was recorded with a microphone placed inside a soup can that the cast yelled into.  The sound quality is so tinny that it took several scenes to discern that Jane and Jenny were two different characters because of garbled line delivery making their names sound alike.

The ending gets sadistically gruesome by ratcheting up the crazy to a delirious level of insanity.  Until that point, a great deal of time is spent watching inmates prank each other to varying degrees of torment, except very little of it adds up to anything substantial.  It’s like a madcap merry-go-round revolving in a time-advancing circuit without actually moving anywhere.

It’s somewhat strange that “Don’t Look in the Basement” was double-billed with “Last House on the Left” during its debut as it is missing that same sinister seventies tone that makes movies like “Last House” still effective today.  “Don’t Look in the Basement” is an odd curiosity, but not in the gritty grindhouse way where weird wonders of that era can give off eerie vibes to 21st-century eyes.  “Basement” is too goofy to be in the same league as its darker drive-in brethren, and too boring to ever warrant a second trip inside its not mysterious enough walls.

Review Score:  40

---