By Geno McGahee
I love the straight to video 1980’s horror selection and whenever one surfaces that I have not seen, I get quite excited. When I got my hands on a DVD/VHS set called THE BASEMENT: RETRO 80’S MOVIE COLLECTION, I was immediately impressed. It came with VIDEO VIOLENCE, which is an outstanding movie and several others that I have not seen, including one called “THE BASEMENT,” an anthology.
I love anthologies. You are typically guaranteed at least one tale that you enjoy. THE BASEMENT was obviously dubbed over. The film was just released, so I’m guessing that they had audio issues and just had the entire movie voiced over. At times, it’s rather funny…other times, it’s sort of distracting.
We begin with four people entering a dark basement and they encounter a sentinel that will show them their future sins that will result in pure hell. They are quite confused by the idea of future sins and as the stories unfold they are curious as to why they are being held to what they may or may not do, but the sentinel knows all.
The Swimming Pool
In the swimming pool tale, there is a strange and deadly beast that will kill anything that falls into the water. The woman that owns the pool is inviting people on her hit list over and then either tricking them into the pool or shoving them in. She wants to live the life with her younger man and wants to remove all the pains in the ass that have been bugging her. This tale reminded me of THE PIT where a kid finds a bunch of monsters in a hole and dumps his enemies to the monsters so they can feast. It’s not nearly as good, but it is certainly worth a watch.
Trick or Treat
This is an awesome tale. A teacher that hates children and hates Halloween will be visited by three spirits to make him change his ways. Yes, it’s based loosely on A Christmas Carol and it was an interesting take. The teacher was absolutely over the top and absolutely hilarious. At one point, these young children come to his door and ask for candy and he takes his hot coffee and dumps it into one of their bags, saying “trick.” He has visions of killing all of his students. He is just an angry guy and he is unable to change his ways. I loved this tale.
Zombie Movie
This was fun tale about a wannabe horror film maker that is making a zombie movie but knows nothing of the genre. This is easily relatable to the Hollywood horror machine that just puts together horror without any love or knowledge. It’s frustrating and seeing the sleazy dickhead movie producer yell at people and brag about how much money he is going to make was rather funny. This is a tribute to NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD for sure and it is probably a jab at the non-affiliated “RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD” comedic style flicks that were made. This was another good one.
Home Sweet Home
This is the slowest moving of the tales and concerns a young man that inherits a home and gets possessed by a demon, which forces him to bring people in and kill them. He really has no power over this and shouldn’t be doomed like the other three people in the basement, but then again, maybe he allowed it to happen…wanted power…something like that and that’s why he is doomed. Who knows? This is a watchable tale, but it isn’t anything great. I still enjoyed it, but after Trick or Treat and Zombie Movie, this was a letdown. Take or leave this one.
The fate of the four is the same fate that you see in TALES FROM THE CRYPT the movie and VAULT OF HORROR…and it is obviously inspired by movies of this sort, but it is original and fun and I highly recommend it. When you consider that you get this anthology and VIDEO VIOLENCE along with three other movies for only about 20 bucks, what is your excuse for not buying it? This collection is an awesome throwback to a time when horror was right, video stores were all over the place and a new adventure was in every big VHS box.
Scared Stiff Rating: 7.5/10
