The Basement is essentially torture porn, and like The Passion of the Christ, nearly the entire film consists of extreme torment being inflicted on one guy. The only real difference is one purports to be a horror movie, while the other is considered required viewing for some Christians (though I’m still not sure how watching Jesus in agony for two hours brings them closer to him).
I don’t think I’d consider The Basement to be horror, either. Sadism for its own sake isn’t horror. Even the film that came to define torture porn for modern audiences (Hostel) managed to instill enough atmospheric dread to qualify as horror. But here, we’re mostly just curious about what awful thing its main character endure next, and how convincing the make-up effects are.
The victim is Craig Owen (Cayleb Long), a famous musician who’s running an errand for his wife, Kelly (Mischa Barton), when he’s abducted by a serial killer known as The Gemini (Jackson Davis). Craig is bound to a school desk in a dank basement while his captor repeatedly adopts different personalities and guises, each who address him as Bill (The Gemini’s actual name). Some of these personalities condemn “Bill” for his murders, others assault him gruesomely and graphically.
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| Extreme detention. |
But while the make-up effects are indeed pretty convincing, the film isn’t scary or suspenseful. It’s relentlessly talky between torture scenes and serves up a protagonist who isn't interesting or engaging enough to invest in…just a rich guy cheating on his wife. Speaking of which, at least a third of the narrative focuses on Kelly, who laments that Craig hasn’t come home but never appears worried something bad has happened to him. That, coupled with the dull chats she has with her bestie, Bianca, pretty much telegraphs the twist ending writer-directors Brian M. Conley & Nathan Ives are obviously proud of.
The performances are mostly perfunctory, save for Davis, who’s admittedly impressive adopting all those different personas (12 of them, to be exact). Other than that, The Basement is a movie that’s far more in love with its torture sequences and predictable denouement than creating anything resembling true horror.
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ALTERNATE OPENING - With a bonus several head for your troubles.
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