You often find that a theme runs thru many film makers movies, no matter what genre they may venture into. Wes Craven is one such writer/director who quite often constructs his films with similar basis, in that they're set in your everyday suburbia but with a slight bent on reality. His characters are often strong in personality and are easy to releate to and identify with. His baddies are nearly always toally insane, but in a good way that makes you want to see just how far they can go without being overtly offensive.

People Under the Stairs follows the CRaven methodoloy of film making quite closely. Spenser aka Fool (Brandon Adams) dreamd of being a doctor when he grows up, but lives in a world where he's held back from his full potential based purely on econimic reasons. His mother is near death and with no one to pay the rent they are about to be evicted by the towns Mr Scrooge. He wants to knock down the apartment they live in as the land it's own is worth a mint Fool's sisters boyfriend Leroy (Ving Rhames) convinces Spenser to help him out in a heist on the Landlord's creepy mansion. The Landlord (Everett McGill...of Twin Peaks) and his female companion known simply as Mother(Wendy Robie...his wife on Twin Peaks) are your basic nutters. Their creepy house is locked up tighter than Alcatras, they treat their daughter (AJ Langer) like dirt and they have a whole bunch of kids locked up in the basement!!!!!

Fool and Leroy manage to break into the creepy house while the owners are away, but are soon locked inside ...and the chase is on. The house is riddled with hidden passage ways, booby traps and of course the people under the stairs.

People may not be Craven's finest, but it does have some nice touches and can at time go off the rafters, especially with the behavious of Mother and Father. (and you thought your parents were bad! :)

VIDEO
While it would have been nice for more effort to go into this trasfer, People has been presented to us in Anamorphic Widescreen so it does make up for something. Colours are typically muted and detail not revealing enough, but still quite acceptable. There is a constant low level of grain and noise reduction, mixed in with a bit of dirt and grime.

While on the visual side of the DVD, People is credited as including a whole heap of subtitles, ALL of which are selectable via menu, or your remote control subtitle button. When turned On, you WON'T see ANY evidence of there actually being subtitles, no matter which subtitle language you select! A Rather BIG Oops i believe!

AUDIO
We only get a Dolby Digital 2.0 track but at times it's a little more than juiced up (for 2 channel surround sound at least). Dialogue is clean and clear for the most part, but at times does show slight signs of slippery lip-sync'ing. Overall clarity of the soundtrack is lacking when compared to films of today, but it;s quite acceptable for the vintage.

EXTRAS
Just a trailer. pity we don't get a craven commentary becuase on the few that he has lent his voice to, they have been exceptionally informative.. ah well