YMMV / The People Under the Stairs

• Complete Monster: "Mommy" and "Daddy" Robeson are a pair of incestuous siblings known as cutthroat landlords in a poor neighborhood, evicting tenants ruthlessly. Even worse in private, the Robesons abduct children from poor families and hideously abuse them, cutting out "the bad parts" from them and imprisoning them under the stairs while killing any intruders and feeding them to the imprisoned and starving kids. When the hero, Fool, is lost in their house, the Robesons spare no effort to try to find and kill him while abusing their abducted child Alice. When Alice discovers the truth and rejects "Mommy" as her mother, the latter tries to kill her, screaming at her to burn in hell.
• Cult Classic: While not the most well-known Wes Craven movie, it has grown more popular over time thanks to its unusual Black Comedy and/or social commentary on class and race. In fact, it has become popular enough for Jordan Peele to consider remaking the movie.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: He has less than fifteen minutes of screen time, but fans are especially fond of Roach (Sean Whalen) for his "Home Alone" Antics and Big Brother Instinct towards Alice.
• Narm: The entire neighborhood showing up in the middle of the night to confront Mommy and Daddy definitely crosses into this. In fairness, it's outright stated that Mommy and Daddy have been gouging the rent and kidnapping and murdering children. Even before considering Fool's apparent popularity, the oddness is less that people step up than that they don't outright riot.
• Toy Ship: Fool and Alice.
• The Woobie:
  • If anyone is set up to be this, it's Alice. Alice is kidnapped from her parents and raised in an atmosphere of complete fear where the slightest step out of line could get her mutilated and locked in the basement for the rest of her life. She's beaten, forcibly bathed in steaming hot water, and possibly sexually abused.
  • Roach, when he gets shot, even before that.

---