Video Nasties: Don’t Look in the Basement (1973)

THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS!

a.k.a. The Forgotten

Year Re-Released: 2005 (uncut)

Before we look at this film let’s look at the synopsis on the back on the DVD case doesn’t help the film at all, boasting “twisted fantasies which includes urder”. Oh boy, I can’t wait to find out what “urder” is!

Don’t Look in the Basement is set in Stephens Sanitarium, possibly the worst mental health institute in the US as patients are free to roam around the secluded building. This is in the hopes that they will just somehow snap out of their fantasies just because they get to act them out. Sounds like not only would that reinforce these behaviours, but it also sounds extremely dangerous, which is exactly what it is.

In the 9 minute lead up to the opening credits appear one of the dangerous patients attacks the chief doctor with an axe and another crushes a nurse’s head after the patient thinks the nurse is trying to steal her “baby”. Now with these two out of the way one doctor is left, but that’s OK because a new nurse is on her way. Then the film gets tedious and boring.

The biggest problem with this institute is that some of these people are clearly dangerous. One character seems to take it upon himself to call judgment on everyone and is violent about it. Another is a Sergeant, but he doesn’t do anything, though is most probably volatile due to having shellshock from the Vietnam War. The woman with the doll is violent towards people who she deems threatening.  

Some of these people also feel like they shouldn’t be there, aside from a man called Sam, who has the mind of a child. We also have some guy who just comes across as a nasty person, not insane. There’s also an old lady who just seems like an old lady.

There’s also a nymphomaniac who really shouldn’t be in the institute. The premise of “living out fantasies” can only go so far with her, as she is unable to act upon them because no one will have sex with her, therefore the chief doctor cannot cure her. I think she is only there to increase the creepiness factor in the only genuinely creepy scene where it is implied that she has had sex with a fresh corpse.

The reason I have been talking about the patients so much is because this is pretty much all the film is about: looking at insane people for 70 minutes until the climax of the film. It isn’t entertaining and isn’t scary or creepy. It’s just boring,

When the climax does finally come along there is a clever twist where it turns out that the doctor currently running the institute is actually one of the patients and that the nurse is the only sane one there. Then people just start dying for no real reason. The not-doctor kills one of them, then the necrophilia scene, then the nurse finds the chief doctor in the basement and kills him in fear, then the patients go to kill the nurse, then Sam saves her, then they go to kill the not-doctor, she dies, nurse escapes through the basement, Sam comes back and kills them all for killing the not-doctor, the end.

Seriously, that’s how it ends. Stuff just kind of happens and then THE END!

I suppose I can kind of see why Don’t Look in the Basement a Video Nasty. It has some nudity (two occasions where breasts appear) and some violence, along with the implied necrophilia (it is implied, though the box says necrophilia is in it). So those are some reasons it may have been banned, but there’s nothing really solid to go on here.

I don’t really recommend this film. If you want a slasher  this isn’t the film for you and if you want One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest critique on mental institutions in the US then I can’t say you’ll get that here either. Just watch something else and you’ll be more entertained. Not only this but this film never tells you what “urder” really is. That’s just disappointing!

Final Verdict: 1/10