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The People Under the Stairs

1991 film directed by Wes Craven

The People Under the Stairs is a 1991 American black comedy heist horror thriller film about a teenage ghetto boy with his mentor Leroy breaking into the residence of their family's landlords, he discovers that they have mutilated and imprisoned several boys in the basement, with their abused daughter Alice with their Christian fundamentalism.

Directed and written by Wes Craven.
In every neighborhood there is one house that adults whisper about and children cross the street to avoid. Now Wes Craven, creator of "A Nightmare on Elm Street" takes you inside... taglines

Man

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  • Burn in hell for gettin' free, and burn in hell for showin' the way!
  • [To his dog] Shut the FUCK up!
  • Kiss your ass goodbye, boy!

Woman

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  • What's a mother to do? Lazy brat sits in her room all day, sewing dolls. Children misbehaving in the basement! And one in the wall, doing his business God knows where. You kids will be the death of me... the death of me.
  • I don't want to see another cop or cookie in my life. I don't know which one makes me sicker.
  • You didn't lick this, did you?
  • Then she can burn in hell. Both of them.

Fool

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  • [Looking over money stash of the landlords] No wonder there's no money in the ghetto!
  • How did Spenser get past her? She's got X-Ray eyeballs!
  • [To Rottweiler dog] Hey fuzzball! Your mother sleeps with cats!
  • That X-ray lady's back, she's out back right now by the van. She's got a man with her the size of Detroit.

Leroy

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  • Yeah, and maybe the President will make me Secretary of Pussy.
  • We done popped this house's cherry.
  • He came at me like an airplane or something!
  • Just because a man's lying down doesn't mean he's dead!
  • Nice to see the rich folks' got rats too.

Alice

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  • [To the woman] Go to hell!

Dialogue

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Leroy: You seen Spencer?
Fool: I seen Spencer, alright.
Leroy: You find anything?
Fool: Something found him. He's dead, Leroy. I think scared to death.
Leroy: Y- you sure?
Fool: You thought he was white before, you should see that sucker now!
Fool: Well I don't want in, I want out.
Alice: Sometimes in is out.
Man: May they burn in hell.
Woman: Forever and ever in hell.
Grandpa Booker: Meanwhile, you be careful. That brother and sister act you mess with are evil, plain and simple.
Fool: Wait a minute, brother and sister?
Grandpa Booker: Brother and sister. Tailend of the craziest family you ever heard of. Every generation more insane than the one before it. Started out as a family running a funeral home, selling cheap coffins for expensive prices. Then they got their fingers into real estate, started making a lot of money taking over people's homes. The more money they got, the greedier they got. The greedier they got, the crazier they got. All sorts of rumors about what's going on in that place. Never proved it because the police never took it serious. But believe me, when I was a kid, none of us ever walked past that house.
Fool: My name is Fool. What's yours?
Alice: [Shyly] Alice.
Fool: Don't be scared. You never seen a brother before?
Alice: Never had a brother.
Fool: No, I mean a black dude. There's black folks in this neighborhood.
Alice: Neighborhood?
Fool: The neighborhood. You know, outside.
Alice: Well, that's outside, not in here.
Fool: So you get outside, don't you?
Alice: [Shakes her head]
Fool: You sayin' never?
Alice: Can't get out. No one ever has.
Fool: Well, I'm gonna get out. I'm a whole other thing.
Alice: People have tried.
Fool: You mean, the people in the cellar? [Alice nods] Who are they?
Alice: Mommy and Daddy looked a long time to find the perfect boy child, but each one they found turned out bad. Some saw things they weren't supposed to, others heard too much, others talked back. Daddy cut out the bad parts, and put the boys in the cellar, one by one. They get flashlights and food of some kind. I suppose they're happy in their own way.
Fool: Yeah right. What about you? How come they haven't put you in the cellar?
Alice: I do not see, or hear, or speak evil. It's the only way.
Fool: [Hears screaming from within the walls] What is that?
Alice: What?
Fool: That yelling! What is that?
Alice: Well, that's Roach.
Fool: Roach?
Alice: That's who Daddy's hunting. See, Daddy hates Roach because he got out of the cellar and into the walls, and now Daddy can't find him.
Ruby Williams: What're you gonna do, shoot us all?
Woman: You'll do!
Alice: No! [Drops out of the ceiling and knocks the Woman's head against the floor]
Ruby Williams: Damn, she knocked that bitch cold!
Second man: Look at her, what they doing to her in there?
Ruby Williams: Now here's your card, Fool. See? That's where l got your nickname.
Fool: Don't remind me!
Ruby Williams: Here you go. Today. The golden-haired birthday boy is settin' off on life's big adventure.
Fool: I ain't no golden-haired nobody! All l'm goin' on to is seventh grade.
Ruby Williams: Well, you're the Fool, and you can't escape that. That ain't bad.
Fool: No?
Ruby Williams: No. Ain't the stupid kind of fool. The ignorant kind, cos you're just startin' out.
Fool: That's better, l guess.
Ruby Williams: Ah, but look here. Already he's got a problem, see? One step in front Fool: the drop-off.
Fool: What about the dog?
Ruby Williams: That's Fool's companion. See his spirit barking? "Fool! Don't go marching over that cliff, now! Do the smart thing. The high thing."
Fool: So what Fool gonna do if he ain't gonna go off the cliff? Fly?
Ruby Williams: He gonna do what he have to, Fool. Turn around and walk the other way, right through the fire of the sun.
Fool: He'll get burned up if he do that.
Ruby Williams: Just the boy part get burned up. The rest come out the other side a man. And no one calls him "Fool" again.
Fool: Hey!
Man: [Aims his gun at Fool, but stops when he sees Fool holding up two wires]
Fool: You shoot me, and you die too, man. And you better believe it. Don't be crazy now. There's enough dynamite back there to blow you sky high. Not the best place to store it, in my opinion. But there it was. Now just put the gun down.
Man: [Aims at Fool again]
Fool: Put the gun down. I don't wanna kill you, but I will 'cuz I don't like you much anyway.
Man: [Hesitates, but doesn't lower his weapon]
Fool: I'm tired of fucking around! So either put the gun down now, or kiss your ass goodbye, boy!
Ruby Williams: My name is Ruby Williams and I represent the association of people who have been unjustly evicted, exploited and generally fucked over.
Woman: What?
Ruby Williams: You and your brother are landlords of over 50 buildings in this city, ALL of which you've allowed to deteriorate into rat infested hellholes while you guys get rich charging ridiculous rents. THEN, you evict anyone the minute they can't pay rent so you can tear down their homes and build some more office buildings, isn't that about right?
Man: Some niggers robbed the store.
Woman: Again? May they burn in hell.
Man: I'm very tense from this.
Woman: You have one of your headaches?
Man: Ooh... very VERY tense about this.
Woman: Alice has been bad. She's been feeding that thing between the walls again.
Alice: No... no...
Woman: Remember not to bruise her face. [Woman leaves and Man begins taking off his belt to punish Alice]
Man: Bad girls... burn in hell.
Alice: He said he killed you!
Fool: He was exaggerating.
Fool: [After Roach rescues him from "Daddy"] Thanks.
Roach: [Smiles and nods]
Fool: [To Alice] He doesn't talk much, does he?
Alice: His tongue's cut out.
Roach: [Opens his mouth and shows a severed stump]
Alice: Mommy caught him trying to call for help one day, and Daddy had to teach him to...
Fool: Speak no evil, right?
Alice: [Nods]
Fool: Your father's one sick mother, you know that? Actually, your mother's one sick mother, too!
Alice: Shh! You're speaking evil! They'd kill you if they heard a word you just said.
Fool: Listen Alice, they're not your real parents.
Alice: What?
Fool: They're not. They're not even husband and wife. They stole you, like they did Roach and all the others. They're a bunch of rotten baby snatchers.
Alice: You're just saying that...
Fool: My grandfather Booker told me. He wouldn't lie to me.
Fool: [Leroy is attempting to pry a door open with a crowbar to enter the house and find Spencer, who did not return after entering the house] Listen Leroy, this breaking and entering might not be so smart. It's the first day of my thirteenth birthday... could be unlucky.
Leroy: Thirteenth birthday is unlucky anyway. Too old to get tit, too young to get ass... fucked either way.
Woman: How dare he come into our happy home!
Man: He came back to get Alice! You should have let me kill her!
Woman: You stay away from Alice!
Man: She did it with him! I know it!
Woman: Not my little girl!
Man: She's a whore!
Fool: They've got padlocks on the outside of the house too...
Leroy: Padlocks on the outside?
Woman: [Catching Roach and Fool in Alice's room with her] You viper in my bosom! You little Judas!
Man: What are we gonna do with 'em, Mommy?
Woman: It is time to clean house! Total... spring... cleaning.
Alice: Roach is my friend.
Fool: Roach? I'm Poindexter.
Roach: [Tries to mumble his name]
Fool: Everybody calls me Fool.
Roach: Foo...?
Fool: You sure got the names, huh? [Notices Alice's basket of homemade dolls] This Leroy? You did this? Why you make these?
Alice: To hold the souls of burglars when they died. Or salesmen, workmen, other people who saw too much.
Woman: Get off my property!
Grandpa Booker: Just want to finish saying our piece, ma'am.
Ruby Williams: Not only are you bad landlords but 10 times worse. You've stolen all the children from our community for your own sick needs!
Woman: There's no community here, all I see are a couple of ni... [the entire neighborhood comes up behind Ruby and Booker]
First man: Ruby, right here!
First woman: Got that right!
Second woman: We busted your ass, bitch!
Ruby Williams: What're you gonna do, shoot us all?
Woman: Where's the Bear Trooper?
Man: Dead meat. I could've killed him, but I let the people under the stairs do it.

Cast

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