Stay Out of the Basement

I had never heard about this 2023 horror movie titled "Stay Out of the Basement" from writer and director Ryan Callaway prior to sitting down and watching it. However, I have to admit that my expectations to the movie were slim, given the movie's rather amateurish cover. But still, I opted to give the movie the benefit of the doubt.

Turns out that my initial gut feeling was right on, and "Stay Out of the Basement" was not worth the effort. The storyline and narrative in the movie was dull and rather uneventful. And as for this being a horror movie, well let's just say that you shouldn't get your hopes up, unless you consider a bland and monotonous storyline as being horror.

The acting performances in "Stay Out of the Basement" were sluggish, amateurish and wooden. Needless to say that I wasn't familiar with a single actress or actor on the cast list, and after having sat through 71 minutes of this ordeal, I can honestly say that nor did I take notice of any performance, as no one stood out as being memorable.

Visually then you're in for 71 minutes of nothing. There was nothing worthwhile on the screen in terms of special effects or anything that would even spruce the narrative up to anything resembling a horror movie.

"Stay Out of the Basement" was a swing and a miss from writer and director Ryan Callaway. And it is not a movie that I would recommend horror fans to waste their time, money or effort on. Some of us suffered through this ordeal, so you don't have to.

This looked and felt like writer and director Ryan Callaway had gotten together friends and family and shot an amateur home movie in less than 24 hours.

My rating of "Stay Out of the Basement" lands on a two out of ten stars.

This is a homemade horror, in every sense of the term.

Based on the production quality alone, you can tell it was shot on practically no budget whatsoever.

But for what it is...it's really not that bad.

The story centers around a young girl, who takes on a babysitting job for a woman to whom darkness is attracted.

Through her daughter, the girl learns that they had moved away, only to return three weeks later.

After finding her mother wandering aimlessly through the woods, among some sort of ritual altar.

Turns out, she was lured by a ghost...who has since become attached to the woman- who now haunts her house.

Particularly, the basement.

Hence the title.

The ghost is, well...not good.

It's just a woman with a blonde wig and black mask.

And of course a few props, which look like they were purchased from Spirit Of Halloween.

Like I said...it's real low budget.

The filmmakers do have some promise though.

Because they do a decent job in regards to character development.

So, considering what they were clearly working with...they didn't do too bad of a job.

Of course, it's by no means a great- or particularly even good- film.

But the young lady does a decent job in her role as the babysitter.

While it's short runtime (approx. 70 mins) prevents it from being too much of a chore to sit through.

It feels like it was made by kids.

Like a school project.

Or as part of a college program or something.

Which- if such is the case- would explain a lot, and be laudable.

Just don't go into it expecting much.

But it's worth a watch if you like to see what people can do with nothing to work with.

2 out of 10.

Working as a babysitter, a young woman at a remote house in the countryside tries to help the charge in her care get through the night after complaining of a figure haunting the house which soon sets them out on a mission to figure out what's going on to stop the hauntings.

This was a fairly enjoyable kid-friendly genre effort. One of the better features here is the solid setup that doesn't do anything clever or original but still manages to be worthwhile enough for this type of feature. The beginning shows off how responsible she is and how she treats the opportunity to babysit the young charge with her handling of the questions and how the various events that happen around the house not only start the feeling of it being haunted but the maturity to be that quick to show how she works in this kind of situation is a great touch. The actual babysitting later on and how she and her friend visiting continue this nicely as this all goes through the kind of necessary showcases that proper mindset and nurturing setup that goes a long way to highlight her attitude while also getting small touches for the haunted background. That goes quite nicely with the later scenes to bring about some decent enough setups to generate light but still chilling supernatural air. The first encounter in the woods starts this on a nice note, while the brief bits while they're goofing around in the house of the backstory flashback to explain the potential haunting are both fine sequences that start hinting heavily at the idea of something happening around the family. It goes on in this fashion to the final half where it starts to bring about the true nature of the haunting and how this is played up with the dream about the future chasing her through the house and later attacking the captive that is later revealed to have potentially happened which serves the final twist rather nicely that is surprising with how the particular figure is involved and gives this one some nice positives. There are some issues with this one that bring it down. The most obvious issue here is the preference for spelling everything out with dialog rather than action so the pace can feel sluggish and dull. While there are points here where it starts to something interesting with the daughter bringing up weird incidents or the mother's weird behavior hinting that something is wrong, the lack of following through with a physical presence to pay these off ends up making the film overly talky and lacking with that genre fare. This is a result of the kid-friendly atmosphere that means there's never going to be a chance to play up the kind of content to put that into effect which is the case here since nothing really happens until the end and even then it's not as prominent as expected. It's not as bad as the film's dull pace but it still holds it back somewhat.

Rated Unrated/PG: Violence and children-in-jeopardy.

This movie is not a high budget one .. but, really still acceptable. Especially the performance of the lead actress Ariella Mossey which made it acceptable instead of miserable level. She is the one who made the movie and she is clearly acting much better than all the other cast performance combined! She really carried the movie up to a different level than it has! Ariella really made me watch the whole movie and without her amazing performance I would not be able to even watch the whole movie. She is the only reason I am giving it 9 instead of maybe 2 or even 1. I didn't much like any of the other actresses performances and the story itself which did not have a mentionable ending or good budget.

I hope Ariella Mossey will be in more movies soon and I really do hope to see her in higher budget movies as well. She is so talented! There was no any single second I felt that she is not able perform greatly.

9 out of 10 for the unexpectedly stunning performance of this actress!

I'm in the last few minutes of this, what on earth is this all about? I've seen more horror when my old Granddad cuts he's toenails and a shard hit my arm causing a small gash.

So the genre is totally wrong, totally boring, the story is as dry as a cream cracker. The acting is dire and to be honest the only thing that kept me watching was the anticipation of anything happening.

There is one good thing...its only an hour and 11 minutes long.

This movie needs archiving before it bores anyone else. I mean when films are released surely they are checked out first? This one needs a health warning as it's in danger of causing the viewer to fall asleep and drop their drink or popcorn.