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Don’t Go Down There – Creepy Horror Movie Basements You’ll Want to Avoid

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Recently, while wading through the murky black waters of my unfinished and now flooded murder basement, I found myself gazing at the support column – with red children’s handprints erratically splayed across the concrete – and thought “this is probably how I die”.

While I am 100% not kidding about how outstandingly creepy my basement is (red painted handprints and all), I am, of course, still alive. I don’t live in a horror movie – if I did, I’d definitely be seven different shades of dead. Because if there’s one thing we’ve learned from a creepy basement in a horror movie, it’s that they are their own unique harbingers of doom.

Let’s go through a few, shall we?

Don’t Breathe

Image via Tumblr

Don’t Breathe has a bit of a double-whammy of basement terror. First off, it’s immense, crowded with junk, and owned by an armed and trained madman who functions well in the dark. Now, you add in the frantic, scared and kidnapped young woman chained to the ceiling, and you’ve got an express ticket to nope-town.

The People Under the Stairs

Image via Tumblr

This basement is apparently a front for a private makeshift butcher shop. The butcher’s subterranean lair is full of trapped souls, damned to live the rest of their lives ravenous and angry. Now, he has the coin to keep it going, but woefully, he needs a private supply of meat. Meat that stumbles onto the property, never to be seen again…

He’s going to eat you, is what I’m saying. Stay out of the basement, and probably just avoid the whole house in general.

The Conjuring

Image via ScareMeOnFridays

The Conjuring has done a lot for horror basements. The first film has the creepy clapping and the bloody bedsheet ghost, and the second film has that freaky flooded danger zone. James Wan really doesn’t like basements, methinks. Or at least he knows the universal truth – they’re terrifying death traps.

The Silence of the Lambs

Image via Tumblr

In a scene that continues to give me anxiety every time I watch it, The Silence of the Lambs is a prime example of a nightmare-inducing horror basement. The idea of frantically wandering through the dark in an unfamiliar area with a killer-with-an-advantage chasing after you is… uncomfortably scary. Especially considering how many others have been in that same basement and not lived to tell the tale.

Clarice survived because she’s a damn good agent and she trusted her senses, acting without hesitation. We survived because we finally remembered to breathe once the damn scene is over.

We Are Still Here

Image via ScreenFish

This classically creepy basement is inhabited by a vengeful family of char-broiled, flesh-burning, skull-crushing demon ghosts. These older homes do tend to have some character.

Return of the Living Dead

Image via TheZombieSite

Does your basement have a Tarman? Then don’t go down there! He’s hungry and strangely good at problem solving!

Intruders

Image via WheresTheJump

Intruders is – as my colleague Trey puts it – part The People Under the Stairs and part Panic Room. A small group of lower-case criminals break into the house of a young agoraphobic woman with the goal of stealing a large bundle of cash. Lucky for her – and unlucky for them – she has an intimate knowledge of all the house’s secrets – including a mysterious and meticulously designed basement.

If these walls could talk, they’d scream.

Evil Dead

Image via TerribleBlog

If you find yourself in a basement under a cabin in the woods, oh, you are definitely gonna die. Sorry.

Honorable mention:

Jack Ketchum’s The Girl Next Door. After recently reading the book, I couldn’t bring myself to watch the movie just yet. That being said, he absolutely nails the oppressive and claustrophobic energy of a torture basement. Every scene that takes place in the basement invokes a sense of dread that – like our poor protagonist – you cannot escape and cannot control.

 

What other basements are you scared of? Tell us in the comments!

 

Featured image by Chris Fischer

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Movies

Another Creepy Spider Movie Hits Shudder This Month

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Good spider films are a theme this year. First, we had Sting and then there was Infested. The former is still in theaters and the latter is coming to Shudder starting April 26.

Infested has been getting some good reviews. People are saying that it’s not only a great creature feature but also a social commentary on racism in France.

According to IMDb: Writer/director Sébastien Vanicek was looking for ideas around the discrimination faced by black and Arab-looking people in France, and that led him to spiders, which are rarely welcome in homes; whenever they’re spotted, they’re swatted. As everyone in the story (people and spiders) is treated like vermin by society, the title came to him naturally.

Shudder has become the gold standard for streaming horror content. Since 2016, the service has been offering fans an expansive library of genre movies. in 2017, they began to stream exclusive content.

Since then Shudder has become a powerhouse in the film festival circuit, buying distribution rights to movies, or just producing some of their own. Just like Netflix, they give a film a short theatrical run before adding it to their library exclusively for subscribers.

Late Night With the Devil is a great example. It was released theatrically on March 22 and will begin streaming on the platform starting April 19.

While not getting the same buzz as Late Night, Infested is a festival favorite and many have said if you suffer from arachnophobia, you might want to take heed before watching it.

Infested

According to the synopsis, our main character, Kalib is turning 30 and dealing with some family issues. “He’s fighting with his sister over an inheritance and has cut ties with his best friend. Fascinated by exotic animals, he finds a venomous spider in a shop and brings it back to his apartment. It only takes a moment for the spider to escape and reproduce, turning the whole building into a dreadful web trap. The only option for Kaleb and his friends is to find a way out and survive.”

The film will be available to watch on Shudder starting April 26.

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Part Concert, Part Horror Movie M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘Trap’ Trailer Released

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In true Shyamalan form, he sets his film Trap inside a social situation where we aren’t sure what is going on. Hopefully, there is a twist at the end. Furthermore, we hope it’s better than the one in his divisive 2021 movie Old.

The trailer seemingly gives away a lot, but, as in the past, you can’t rely on his trailers because they are often red herrings and you are being gaslit to think a certain way. For instance, his movie Knock at the Cabin was completely different than what the trailer implied and if you hadn’t read the book on which the film is based it was still like going in blind.

The plot for Trap is being dubbed an “experience” and we aren’t quite sure what that means. If we were to guess based on the trailer, it’s a concert movie wrapped around a horror mystery. There are original songs performed by Saleka, who plays Lady Raven, a kind of Taylor Swift/Lady Gaga hybrid. They have even set up a Lady Raven website to further the illusion.

Here is the fresh trailer:

According to the synopsis, a father takes his daughter to one of Lady Raven’s jam-packed concerts, “where they realize they’re at the center of a dark and sinister event.”

Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, Trap stars Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Shyamalan, Hayley Mills and Allison Pill. The film is produced by Ashwin Rajan, Marc Bienstock and M. Night Shyamalan. The executive producer is Steven Schneider.

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Woman Brings Corpse Into Bank To Sign Loan Papers

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Warning: This is a disturbing story.

You have to be pretty desperate for money to do what this Brazilian woman did at the bank to get a loan. She wheeled in a fresh corpse to endorse the contract and she seemingly thought the bank employees wouldn’t notice. They did.

This weird and disturbing story comes via ScreenGeek an entertainment digital publication. They write that a woman identified as Erika de Souza Vieira Nunes pushed a man she identified as her uncle into the bank pleading with him to sign loan papers for $3,400. 

If you’re squeamish or easily triggered, be aware that the video captured of the situation is disturbing. 

Latin America’s largest commercial network, TV Globo, reported on the crime, and according to ScreenGeek this is what Nunes says in Portuguese during the attempted transaction. 

“Uncle, are you paying attention? You must sign [the loan contract]. If you don’t sign, there’s no way, as I cannot sign on your behalf!”

She then adds: “Sign so you can spare me further headaches; I can’t bear it any longer.” 

At first we thought this might be a hoax, but according to Brazilian police, the uncle, 68-year-old Paulo Roberto Braga had passed away earlier that day.

 “She attempted to feign his signature for the loan. He entered the bank already deceased,” Police Chief Fábio Luiz said in an interview with TV Globo. “Our priority is to continue investigating to identify other family members and gather more information regarding this loan.”

If convicted Nunes could be facing jail time on charges of fraud, embezzlement, and desecration of a corpse.

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