Independent horror films created before the era of home video are sometimes the easiest ones lost to time. Some, like the 1973 movie Don’t Look in the Basement, attract enough attention to generate a cult following and have experienced new popularity in the age of streaming. This particular film drew enough attention that it spawned a sequel more than 40 years later and is now free to stream without subscription.

Not The Best Treatment Plan

Don’t Look in the Basement takes viewers on a journey to the Stephens Sanitarium where the good Dr. Stephens houses a group of mental patients in the countryside.

Dr. Stephens believes his treatment will be revolutionary, as he allows his charges to act out their delusions like they are really happening. This backfires on the man when one of the patients strikes and kills him with an ax.

In the panic that follows, the head nurse is savagely attacked and killed by another patient. Harriet has delusions that her baby doll is real, and accuses the elderly nurse of taking her baby from her.

The nurse suffers a gruesome death as her head is crushed by Harriet in a suitcase.

The Doctor’s Work Continues

Don’t Look in the Basement leaves the sanitarium under the control of Dr. Geraldine Masters, a woman who seems devoted to Dr. Stephens’ work.

A new nurse named Charlotte Beale arrives not long after the two murders, revealing to Dr. Masters that she was hired by Stephens shortly before his untimely death.

As Charlotte settles in, she becomes acquainted with the sanitarium.

An elderly woman with delusions of children playing in the garden, a schizophrenic named Allyson, a low-functioning man named Sam, and others make up the residents of the rural mansion that are under she and Masters’ care.

Patients Get Taken Out

But things in Don’t Look in the Basement are not what they seem. The phone lines out of the sanitarium are cut.

One by one, the patients in the Stevens Sanitarium are brutally murdered. Suspicions fall on several of the patients, and the surviving ones seeming to know a terrible secret about Dr. Masters.

As Don’t Look in the Basement draws to its bloody conclusion, audiences will be shocked at the events that transpire and the real killer(s) is named.

A Slasher Pioneer

Don’t Look in the Basement uses a tired horror trope of mentally ill patients being killers on screen. Each character in the Stephens Sanitarium represents a stereotype of a mental illness or of a brain injury and grossly exaggerates the features of each.

The writers undoubtedly had experience or working knowledge of the mentally ill, and they were still able to create memorable characters that will stick with you.

Don’t Look in the Basement is an early slasher film years ahead of John Carpenter‘s Halloween and two years before Bob Clark’s Black Christmas. The unique ways the killer in the film offs the characters are pioneering for the horror genre and certainly served as an inspiration for future horror entries.

The gratuity is befitting of an independent horror film, giving it a level of sleaze factor that built a cult following in the years after its VHS release.

Stream It Now

The storyline is compelling enough, the kill scenes grotesquely memorable, and the violent ending just enough to balance out the overused tropes.

The 2015 sequel, Don’t Look in the Basement 2, brings back the lone survivor of the carnage while they see that the former Stevens Sanitarium is troubled by the ghosts of those killed there. The direct-to-streaming film doesn’t currently have fan or critics reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and can be streamed on multiple platforms.

The original Don’t Look in the Basement can be streamed for free with Shout!TV, Pluto, and Tubi or rented On Demand with Vudu, Google Play, and Prime.