Stay Out of the Basement

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.

This is clearly a no budget film, but it is a lot better than many movies of this type. It has a spooky story and told it well. A few of the other reviews talk about bad acting, but I found the actresses (as they were almost without exception all female) to be very natural and believable. Emma Pearson was very good as a young child, and Ariella Mossey was great as her babysitter, who is thrown into a number of weird and troubling situations. Rivers Duggan seems off as Liz, but that's appropriate because the character is supposed to be disturbed by everything that has happened and unable to fully deal with life. Everyone else does quite well also. The biggest disappointment is that the entire film turns out, by design, to just be a bridge between the films that came before and the one that comes after. I've not seen any of the other films, so I don't have a larger perspective and am just judging by its own merits. The ultimate villain of the movie is slightly unusual, or maybe is just not explained as well as needed without the other three films to add extra information. At one point it gets a little preachy with a religious statement, but that actually seems appropriate to the characters involved and is not too heavy-handed. That does open the door slightly to criticism that the plot was culturally insulting, but, again, without seeing the other three movies in the series I can't tell is there's a real problem. Based upon the surprising acting chops of the youngest stars and a plot that is both sort of familiar but not overdone, this film overall earns a good but not great rating.

As is typical and familiar with Ryan Callaway's other entries, there's really nothing here to bring about a cult following or viral spread to horror fans. Nothing daring or exploitative, no blood, no uncomfortable or eye-opening moments. I've been waiting for this from Callaway's work, but it seems to be staying G rated, and missing opportunities that make other no budget horror shine a little brighter. We do see several of the usual young female cast members, and that is not a bad thing.. but it's very.. scholastic. I do have to give a shout-out for Emma Pearson being quite adorable and probably the most on-screen charismatic of the bunch. Cheaply made, but not poorly made, it's just not in a category of service that will attract a horror audience. Not yet.

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.

Let's see , let's put two tons of make-up on a seven year old , since she's going to be the next child star ?

Noooot !!

Nice Home Depot shop lights , lighting woods , gzzzz at least put sum gels on them ? There cheap ?

The basement looked like a storage room at goodwill ?

I couldn't get scared because I was looking at all the crap down there .

Maybe that white dressed ghost was an employee of goodwill ?

Going down the stairs to bring up items for sales floor ?

Liked ghost lady pulling a rusted radio flyer though . Although why does a ghost need a wagon full of crap ?

My new rule is don't watch any horror flick after 1999 .

Thx folks !

Stevydvd ( I will return )