The People Under the Stairs (1991)

I have been deeply afraid of The People Under the Stairs since my childhood. When I say that, I mean I was literally afraid of the title. See, we had these basement stairs that were sort of ladder-like in that you could see right through to this dark pile of rubble behind them. Just the concept of "people under the stairs" was completely terrifying. Many times I bolted up those steps at night, imagining pale zombie-like hands reaching through and grabbing my ankles if I was just a second too slow.

Yesterday I actually saw the movie for the first time. It's an early '90s Wes Craven film and is pretty well-known, so I'm sure many of you realize how I felt in finally seeing that the movie is much more funny than it is scary. In fact, the awful representation of black people in the movie probably made me cringe more than anything else. In my defense though, there ARE creepy zombie-looking people who reach through walls and stuff, so my childhood fears were not completely unfounded. Still, it's a pretty fun movie and even has Rayanne Graff in it!

I now feel like I have fully confronted two of my four big childhood horror movie fears. All that's left now is Ghoulies and *It!


*It will never happen, that shit is legit terrifying.