Don’t Look In The Basement (USA, 1973) 90 min color DIR-PROD: S.F. Brownrigg. SCR: Tim Pope. MUSIC: Robert Farrar. DOP: Robert B. Alcott. CAST: Rosie Holotik, Bill McGhee, Hugh Feagin, Betty Chandler, Gene Ross, Camilla Carr, Annabelle Weenick, Rhea MacAdams.
S.F. Brownrigg’s directorial debut was initially released as The Forgotten and did little business under that title. Hallmark Releasing changed the title to Don’t Look In The Basement (perhaps ushering in the 70s trend of horror film titles with Don’t) and re-released it with the famous campaign: “Keep repeating it’s only a movie! It’s only a movie!”, also the tagline for their infamous release, Last House On The Left. These films often shared a profitable double bill, which kept them in rotation well into the 1980s.
While Don’t Look In The Basement isn’t nearly as controversial as its co-feature, it is a strong and sometimes unpleasant film. It has no doubt remained a mini-favourite among horror aficionados for its atmosphere, colourful characters and weird violence. Seen in retrospect, one can evidence the seeds of the Brownrigg’s talent that would become more assured in subsequent pictures.
Pretty Rosie Holotik (seen also in regional productions, Encounter With the Unknown and Twisted Brain), is Charlotte the new live-in nurse at the sanitarium. She was hired by Dr. Stephens, who was just killed in a bizarre behaviour modification experiment with one of his patients! The freaky head nurse Dr. Masters (Annabelle Weenick) becomes in charge, and shows Charlotte the unorthodox patient relations. As more grisly murders occur, one surmises that keeping every patient’s doors unlocked isn’t such a great idea.
This near plotless, character-driven movie follows the interactions between Charlotte and the patients that the staff considers to be a surrogate family: the man-child Sam (Bill McGhee, also in the great Texas-filmed comedy, Drive-In) who likes popsicles and toy boats, Harriet (Camilla Carr) who thinks her baby doll is a live human being, the pitiful tramp Allyson (Betty Chandler) who pines to be loved by everyone (including the poor telephone repairman), the judge (Gene Ross) who dropped the axe on the late doctor, as well as Sgt. Jaffee (Hugh Feagin), who still thinks a war is on. (Love the military drums on the soundtrack during his scenes.)
This picture shares with Samuel Fuller’s Shock Corridor, in allowing one scene each where the patients are viewed as surprisingly lucid, normal human beings. It becomes increasingly hard to tell the difference between the insane and the supposedly stable characters. Likewise, Charlotte’s sanity erodes as the terror escalates.
Made in 12 days for under $100,000, this is a surprisingly good, efficient movie made with such little means. Although some scenes are rather pedestrian, the majority of this film shows a unique talent in development. In his first film as a director, S.F. Brownrigg (previously a sound man for Larry Buchanan), already shows his customary sense of claustrophobia (with handheld over-the-shoulder shots, canted angles, and strange close-ups), combined with Robert Alcott’s striking cinematography (especially the usage of foregrounds) for a memorable visual and visceral experience, culminating in an unsettling climax that one won’t soon forget. Don’t Look In The Basement understandably remained the most popular film in Brownrigg’s canon, but for my money, his best work was to follow.
His subsequent films, Don’t Open The Door, Scum Of The Earth, and Keep My Grave Open, share the unique feel that separates Brownrigg’s work from his contemporaries. The intense pock-marked Gene Ross, raven-eyed Annabelle Weenick and weirdly alluring Camilla Carr (all previously seen in Buchanan’s films) became Brownrigg’s stock company of unique players. Don’t Look In The Basement has been widely available on public domain DVDs for years. Apparently the Blu-ray by BrinkVision offers the film with a high-def transfer, in its original aspect ratio. The movie is on the same disc as the 2014 sequel (!), Don’t Look In The Basement 2, directed by Brownrigg’s son, Anthony.
An update of a piece originally published in Volume #1, Issue #22, “Cheap Horror Movies And Why We Love Them”.
Greg Woods
Greg Woods has been a film enthusiast since his teens, and began his writing "career" at the same time- prolific in capsule reviews of everything he had watched, first on index cards, then those hardcover dollar store black journals, then an old Mac IIsi. He founded The Eclectic Screening Room in 2001, as a portal to share his film love with the world, and find some like-minded enthusiasts along the way. In addition to having worked in the film industry for over two decades, he has been a co-programmer of films at Trash Palace, and a programmer/co-founder of the Toronto Film Noir Syndicate. He has also written for Broken Pencil, CU-Confidential, Micro-Film, and is currently working on his first novel. His secret desire is for someone to interview him for a podcast or a DVD extra.