A new nurse arrives at an isolated insane asylum after a doctor is killed. There she starts to experience the lives of the inmates and sees that sinister occurrances are taking place.

Don’t Look in the Basement is a slow-burn. It’s a perfect film when you don’t want the instant jump scares or gory thrills of a slasher movie but instead the slow building up of tension. The apocalyptic final act makes the build up all the more worthwhile.

For it’s time it must have been quite shocking especially with the inside of such an institution not really being depicted on film before.

I loved the Blood Feast-esque theatrics end of the film where the violence is very camp and the blood redder than red.

I also love how the film’s poster borrows Last House on the Left’s tagline almost as if Basement’s makers were trying to cash in.

3 out of 5 stars