As with most Craven images, this one suffers from lackluster performances, a clumsy screenplay, a campy tone, and a noticeable lack of suspense.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jun 11, 2023

...those shrieking, reaching victims will always stay with me.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 22, 2022

The People Under the Stairs may be as misshapen as the people who live in this basement, but it might be as subversive too.

| Original Score: 3/4 | May 26, 2022

It’s both a nasty thriller and a concise satire of race and class in America.

| Mar 17, 2022

A darkly comedic and prescient social commentary that ranks among Craven's best films.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Dec 30, 2020

The People Under the Stairs does not quite succeed in its intentions, but for such an off-kilter and original work it achieves a lot more than an audience might fairly expect.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Nov 29, 2020

Wes Craven's most engaging, peculiar, and memorable film.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 21, 2020

Although much of the film is too exaggerated and flamboyant to be scary, the chills garnered from helpless children trying to elude armed adults is undeniably effective.

| Original Score: 7/10 | Sep 24, 2020

Easily one of the Wes Craven's most original, deranged, and off the wall films.

| Original Score: B+ | Jul 3, 2020

...a decent premise that's employed to pervasively (and increasingly) unwatchable effect by Craven...

| Original Score: 1/4 | Feb 24, 2020

The everyday and mundane that lures us into a false sense of security can become the very sight of anxiety. [Wes Craven]... does so with a certain complexity and I think his sleepers don't get the attention they deserve.

| Feb 11, 2020

The film turns America's obsession with child abuse to humorous and gothic effect.

| Jul 19, 2018

A parable of underclass exploitation that ends in revolution and extreme -- even explosive -- wealth redistribution.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Nov 6, 2015

A wacky, darkly comic, and obscenely weird horror movie...

| Aug 14, 2015

As a horror film and an allegory that is just as timely in the 21st century as it was in the early 1990s, "The People Under the Stairs" actually has something to say beyond its goal to frighten.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 10, 2015

The performances combine with Craven's witty script and energetic direction to make The People Under the Stairs a spooky, laugh-filled release most horror fans should get a kick out of.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 6, 2010

A pretense of social responsibility and most of the necessary tension get lost in a combination of excessive gore and over-the-top perfs in The People Under the Stairs.

| Mar 26, 2009

There are a few push-button frights, but a total dearth of mind-disturbing terror; the humour, too, is broad, crowd-pleasing stuff.

| Jun 24, 2006

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 9, 2005

Perhaps the most staggeringly incompetent movie in the director's uneven canon.

| Original Score: D | Jun 3, 2005