Now that this is movie 16, I have finally reached the halfway point of my challenge. Halfway through being scared every night when I go to bed. Halfway through thinking people behind me are going to come kill me. So, I couldn’t have picked a better film to mark the halfway point of my challenge because I half liked “The People Under the Stairs.”

Where I watched: DVD

Length: 102 minutes

Prior knowledge of the film: Absolutely nothing.

POC in a horror movie

The most shocking thing to me about this movie was that there were people of color in it, not only that, but a black boy was the protagonist. This is incredible rare for the horror genre. I’ve seen 16 films so far, and unless you count “Leprechaun: Back 2 tha Hood” (which I try to forget that I’ve ever seen), not one of them has a black protagonist. Black people are also notably killed off fairly early in most horror films, so seeing Fool live to the end was a great relief. Fool was not only a black protagonist, but also an incredibly intelligent and funny one who ends up not only saving himself but his entire impoverished community. This was incredibly refreshing to see, as I feel as if I’ve been drowning in a sea of terrible movies with bad protagonists who make it impossible to root for them.

Was it actually scary?

No way. There were times that I was worried about Fool’s safety and if he would ever escape that house, but I never felt overwhelmingly scared while watching the film.

Overall consensus

The movie was the most “okay” movie I’ve ever seen. It had a decent plot which kept me entertained throughout, but it couldn’t have been filled with worse acting (with the exception of Fool, who was fantastic through the whole film), that was honestly pretty hard to get past. Every scene with the two owners of the home Fool was stuck in was horrible to endure because they were both so bad at their job.