I had never heard about this 2023 horror movie titled "Stay Out of the Basement" from writer and director Ryan Callaway prior to sitting down and watching it. However, I have to admit that my expectations to the movie were slim, given the movie's rather amateurish cover. But still, I opted to give the movie the benefit of the doubt.
Turns out that my initial gut feeling was right on, and "Stay Out of the Basement" was not worth the effort. The storyline and narrative in the movie was dull and rather uneventful. And as for this being a horror movie, well let's just say that you shouldn't get your hopes up, unless you consider a bland and monotonous storyline as being horror.
The acting performances in "Stay Out of the Basement" were sluggish, amateurish and wooden. Needless to say that I wasn't familiar with a single actress or actor on the cast list, and after having sat through 71 minutes of this ordeal, I can honestly say that nor did I take notice of any performance, as no one stood out as being memorable.
Visually then you're in for 71 minutes of nothing. There was nothing worthwhile on the screen in terms of special effects or anything that would even spruce the narrative up to anything resembling a horror movie.
"Stay Out of the Basement" was a swing and a miss from writer and director Ryan Callaway. And it is not a movie that I would recommend horror fans to waste their time, money or effort on. Some of us suffered through this ordeal, so you don't have to.
This looked and felt like writer and director Ryan Callaway had gotten together friends and family and shot an amateur home movie in less than 24 hours.
My rating of "Stay Out of the Basement" lands on a two out of ten stars.
