The Forgotten

Plot synopsis:
Dr. Stephens (Michael Harvey) presides over a small hospital for the insane; the asylum is a large three-story white house located in an isolated, rural setting. With only himself and a small staff to care for the patients, his approach to psychiatric care is considered very liberal. He allows the patients access to their individual manias, believing that by encouraging them to act out their inner conflicts, they can resolve them.As the film opens, he is working with a patient named Oliver Cameron (Gene Ross), a former judge who is obsessively striking a wooden log with an ax. Nurse Jane St. Claire (Jessie Lee Fulton) is inside the sanitorium packing her suitcase, as if to leave. She has a confrontation with a patient named Harriet (Camilla Carr), a young woman who carries a baby doll and believes it to be real. Harriet accuses Jane of wanting to steal her baby, and threatens to kill her if she does. Jane rushes outside to tell Dr. Stephens that she has decided to leave the sanitarium for good; she can no longer tolerate the madness that runs rampant there. As she is talking to Stephens, the Judge suddenly turns and strikes Stephens with his ax, felling him. Jane shrieks, but suddenly another woman rushes towards them; she is Dr. Geraldine Masters (Annabelle Weenick), and she tells Jane to go inside, she will take care of everything. Inside the hospital, Jane rushes to get her suitcase and leave, but Harriet appears. Her "baby" is in Jane's room, planted there by some unseen person. Furious, Harriet attacks Jane and kills her, strangling her and then slamming her head inside the suitcase.That evening, a new nurse comes to the asylum; young, pretty Charlotte Beale (Rosie Holotik). Dr. Masters seems hostile to her presence, claiming she was unaware that Dr. Stephens had hired her, and she tells her that Dr. Stephens has been killed by the Judge. Masters tells Charlotte that she can't have the job, since she was hired by Dr. Stephens and he is now dead. Charlotte is distraught, not only because the doctor has been killed, but she says she quit an important job at an urban psych hospital to take the job at Stephens Sanitarium. Masters suddenly changes her attitude when Charlotte announces that she will return to her previous employers and tell them about Dr. Stephens' death and ask for her old job back; admitting that the hospital is now understaffed, Masters invites Charlotte to stay for the time being and shows her to her room. Charlotte tries the phone and discovers it is out of order.The next morning, Dr. Masters introduces Charlotte to the rest of the patients and briefs her on their histories; Danny (Jessie Kirby) is a childlike, bizarre young man who plays pranks and giggles maniacally; Sergeant Jaffe (Hugh Feagin) is a disturbed Vietnam vet constantly on the lookout for the 'enemy'; Sam (Bill McGhee) is a large black man with the mind of an eight-year-old child after a botched lobotomy four years ago (that Masters claims she was a part of); Allyson King (Betty Chandler) is a nymphomaniac constantly in search of physical and emotional affection; Jennifer Downey (Harryette Warren) seems mostly catatonic until she randomly explodes with sudden violence. Judge Cameron went crazy due to the stress of his former job, Harriet believes her baby doll is a living baby, and the final patient is a senile old woman named Mrs. Callingham (Rhea MacAdams). When Mrs. Callingham is alone with Charlotte, she tells her that she is in danger and that she must "get out".Sam takes an immediate liking to Charlotte, but he talks about Dr. Stephens in the present tense. Masters tells Charlotte that Sam just has no concept of death, so Charlotte ignores Sam's remarks about his discussions with Dr. Stephens. Strange things continue to happen, however. Masters seems unconcerned about having the phone reconnected. Jennifer attacks Charlotte with a knife, which Masters also tries to brush over. Mrs. Callingham again tries to warn Charlotte about something, but she awakens the next morning with her tongue cut out; Masters tells Charlotte that the old woman did it to herself in a fit.Later that day, someone steals one of the patient files from the office and Masters finds it in Sarge's room; as punishment, she sets the paper on fire and places it in his outstretched palm, burning his hand as punishment. The paper has Masters' name on it.Suddenly an interloper arrives. Ray (Robert Dracup), a telephone repair man, has come to the house to find out why the service isn't operating. Masters tries to send him away, but when he says that he'll have to come back with more help, she relents and lets him examine the phone box, which is inside a closet. While he is in there, Allyson discovers him and comes onto him suddenly, in a bizarre fashion, demanding that he say he loves her. The scene ends suggesting they have sex.The next day, Charlotte takes Danny for a walk around the grounds of the asylum where he tries to make a move on her, but she rebuffs his advances. That evening, Danny attacks Charlotte while she sleeps with a knife, but the Judge stops him and tells him that he needs to restrain himself.When Charlotte discovers several vials of medicine missing from the medicine cabinet, she tells Dr. Masters about the theft. Masters finds them in Jennifer's room and places them back in the medicine cabinet, locking it up. When Jennifer sees her room ransacked and the medicine missing, she goes to Masters' office to try to break into the medicine cabinet to get more, but someone kills her by stabbing her in her left eye with a metal desk implement.A little later, Sam is cleaning up the kitchen area after dinner when he opens a closet door and discovers something. He goes to get Allyson and tells her he has to show her something. Allyson follows him and Sam takes her to find the body of Ray, horribly slashed to death. Allyson becomes hysterical, wailing about how he loved her.Charlotte finds Allyson sobbing in her room where she tells her that Ray was going to take her away from the hospital, but Masters wouldn't allow it; she killed him to keep order in the asylum. Charlotte denies this but Allyson tells her what she has failed to realize (and what we suspected) all along: Masters is simply another patient in the asylum. Allyson tells her that Masters was a former physician who made a fatal error during a procedure and went insane when her dream of becoming a doctor was denied. Dr. Stephens had been allowing her to pretend to be his colleague as part of her therapy. Charlotte is horrified to discover that she is the only sane person in the secluded hospital.The inmates all confirm this with Charlotte, and the Judge suggests that Charlotte herself is insane, acting out her fantasy of becoming a nurse (because Masters told all of them that Charlotte herself is a patient). Charlotte finds that she cannot escape the house; all the doors and windows have been bolted shut. In desperation she enters the dim basement, only to encounter a shadowy figure who grasps at her ankles. In terror, she bludgeons it to death with Sam's toy boat, only to realize that the figure was Dr. Stephens, wounded but still alive in the basement. Charlotte also finds the body of Jennifer."Doctor" Masters confronts Charlotte and makes an attempt on her life. She has Sam (upset over Charlotte killing Dr. Stephens) take Charlotte upstairs to a vacant room where she plots to have Sam kill her. However, Sam has an change-of-heart and restrains Masters from harming Charlotte. Just then, the other inmates (Judge Cameron, Danny, Sarge Jaffe, Allyson, and Harriett) appear and attack Masters, revolting against her desire to keep them all under her command and of her inhuman treatment of them since Dr. Stephens death. Sam helps Charlotte escape through the basement and out the cellar door. While Charlotte flees down the road on foot in the pouring rain, Sam returns to find Masters dead; gorily hacked apart at the hands of the other inmates. In retaliation, he kills each of the inmates with an axe. In the final shot, Sam sits alone, the only survivor of the ordeal, eating a popsicle while covered in the blood of the dead inmates.

Tags: cruelty, murder, violence, cult, insanity, sadist

Review:
As the latter was also distributed by Hallmark, they obliged to reproduced the same tag line here - `To avoid fainting keep repeating: It's only a movieonly a movieonly a movie'.'Don't Look in the Basement tells the story of Charlotte Beale (heartstoppingly gorgeous Rosie Holotik and Playboy covergirl, April, 1972), a young nurse whose arrival at her new position coincides with a dramatic change within the Stephen's Sanatarium for the mentally insane.
Soon, poor Charlotte realizes that all is not as it should be and '...a sense of unease creeps over her...' Will she solve the mystery of the Sanitarium before she too is driven insane?If you allow yourself to get with the flow of this low budget horror film, then you might even see the twist in the tail.
For me that just ads to the fun of watching this type of stuff.The gore is a bit mild compared to others of this ilk,but there is enough to keep us bloodthirsty sickos (like myself)happy.Some horror films drag in parts and leave you waiting for something to happen.That's not the case here.The characters are entertaining enough to make every frame quite enjoyable.There is never a dull moment from start to finish.The mind melting climax at the end that is just unbelievable.
Take an ensemble cast of good B grade actors, give them a good script, a somewhat original premise, and unobtrusive directing, and you may end up with a film that over-achieves as much as "Don't Look in the Basement" did.The film takes place in a large house which is home to several psychotic individuals.
After a while it becomes very unclear who is a patient and who is a doctor.In the end, Don't Look in the Basement is a cleverly plotted film which benefits from generally good acting and directing and not-overly-ambitious camera work.
Still, the film does have other redeeming features.The acting isn't one of them however; when watching a film like this, one doesn't go in expecting to see great performances, but some of the acting in this movie was so unbelievably below standard that at times even I, a fan of shock horror with bad performances, cringed.
The opening scene is classic; no other horror film starts out better, and the end has its fair share of gore as well).NUDITY: $$$$ (Eager to fall in love Allyson (Betty Chandler) spends a good deal of time naked, attempting to seduce half the men at the sanitarium.
The Forgotten (AKA: Don't Look In The Basement) is a very cheaply made and very old looking horror movie.The story is very slow and never really reaches anything worth getting excited about.The patients at the asylum are embarrassingly funny especially Sam and the old woman who always quotes an old saying to everyone.
(Look out for the bit when she gets close to the camera, tell me you can watch without laughing!).Now the gore is very poor looking, with the blood looking pink in many scenes so it doesn't really deserve its place on the video nasties list!.Overall if you aren't looking for a fantastic horror film and have some time to spare then it's worth a watch..
Don't Look in The Basement has everything that successful horror needs, no stars, no budget, no digital effects, just an original story brought to life in an insane asylum, with a dozen cast members, and a somber, subtle score, and of course, the twist.
It sounded as if it was pulled off of re-runs of `The Prisoner.'  And maybe it was just my DVD, but there was an annoying trail coming off of things when they moved that made the movie almost painful to watch.As for the story, like I said, there were some interesting characters but the basic plot seemed to be written by some sort of crazy person that should've been in the film.
Very rarely did it seem to be going in any coherent direction and when the story finally got around to making some sort of sense, it was very predictable.`Don't Look in the Basement' is a painful movie to watch with no real rewards afterwards.
Whilst there, she meets various sorts of different characters including Dr. Geraldine Masters who becomes in charge of the asylum after the the owner of the hospital Dr. Stephens gets killed by one of the patients by hitting him with an axe.My favourite characters in the film are Mrs Challingham(Reah MacAdams), a very funny little old lady, Allison who is a nymphomaniac, and Sam(Bill McGhee) a young black guy who goes around all Day seeming to be in a world of his own all of the time.
It has the grainy quality and bizarre soundtrack that is typical of horror films of the time period but it's the highly underestimated performances of the surprisingly talented actors/actresses that make this movie good.
"Don't Look in the Basement" (how's that for a gimmicky title?) has an attractive young nurse taking a job at a remote insane asylum that is known for its experimental approaches to psychiatric treatment (such as letting the patients simulate their own delusions, no matter how demented or dangerous).
Upon her arrival, she is notified that the head doctor was murdered by one of the inmates, and is geared to run the asylum with the help of the head nurse, but finds herself receiving increasing hostility from the patients.Also known as "The Forgotten," this deceptive and dreary grindhouse flick was apparently a staple of drive-in horror in the mid-1970s, and has been put through the shredder by audiences online.
Add to that a clever narrative twist that may or may not be easy to read between the lines, which may be the film's greatest asset.Overall, "Don't Look in the Basement" is an effective and atmospheric low-budget horror offering that aspires to greater heights than its budget could clearly afford.
What the film is, is a pretty clever little psychological horror film with occasional moments of great wit, that makes the best out of its obviously minimal budget.The young psychiatric Nurse Charlotte Beale (Rosie Holotik) is assigned to work at the Stephens Sanatarium, a small psychiatric facility with only few (but weird) patients.
Charlotte is then introduced to the patients, which include Sam (Bill McGhee), a huge, kind-hearted black man with the mind of an 8-year old, a former sergeant who still thinks he is in the military, an insane judge, a nymphomaniac who desperately craves for love, a woman who holds her plastic doll for a real baby, and a bunch of other troubled characters.
Without giving to much away, the final kill is superbly directed and very effective.In short, this film is as good as it gets for low budget 70's horror, with surprising quality all around..
Don't Look in the Basement fits the film okay while The Forgotten seems to be a more appropriate title.Question why would Dr. Stephen allow a mentally unstable patient to use a real axe in therapy?
As the film goes on we learn each of the character's and why they are inside the asylum, leading to an interesting twist..'Don't look in the Basement' is a pretty dated film for our times, and was shot on clearly a lower budget than most horror films from that era.
A young nurse named Charlotte Beale arrives at a small sanitarium run by Dr Stephens, but soon finds out that not all is as it seems, as the patients aren't locked in their room and the previous Doctor got murdered, so Charlotte tries to investigate the secrets of the place and soon finds out more than she bargained for.In my opinion I find this movie very uneven, firstly as the first hour basically nothing happens just a bunch of overacting and patients screaming, and plus endless boring dialogue, but then the final half hour the movie finally kicks in which is intense and thrilling and the setting is brilliant with it a genuinely eerie feel -- claustrophobic, intense, and a sweaty nightmarish feel.
Otherwise there were some interesting ones, including a strange old woman who spoke in strange riddles, an ex-soldier who thinks he is still fighting a war, an axe-wielding character called The Judge, a Popsicle loving man with the mental age of a child, a woman with severe relationship issues and another who nurses a baby doll.The mystery/thriller/horror side of the story almost takes a back seat a lot of the time.
Then I turn it on and am faced with some of the worst acting I've ever seen, even when I take into account movies like Friday the 13th part 5 (which was probably influenced by this, actually; they're a LOT alike) and Halloween 2 through 5, but I can look past that for a good horror flick, which this tries to be, but really isn't.If this had been made about 10 or 15 years later than it was, it might've been better, with a bigger budget and some better actors.
Indeed, Don't Look in the Basement might appear to be a scary movie, but as it drags on, you realize that it supports itself by relying on the insane side characters, just using them to fill up screen time instead of actually putting in any real scares.
Dr. Stephens (Michael Harvey), head of a seriously understaffed institute for the insane, takes a 'progressive' approach towards the treatment of his patients, even allowing his loonies complete freedom of the building, day and night; he pays the price for his forward thinking, however, when he rather stupidly prescribes chopping wood with an axe as therapy for one of his patients and consequently gets his neck mistaken for a log (serves him right for not suggesting basket weaving).Shortly after this tragic incident, nurse Charlotte Beale (Rosie Holotik) arrives at the hospital to take up position as the doctor's assistant, and discovers that the facility is now being run by the much sterner Dr. Geraldine Masters (Annabelle Weenick).
Despite being unaware of her deceased predecessor's decision to employ Ms Beale, and not particularly eager to take on new staff, Dr. Masters agrees to let the pretty nurse begin work, but following several harrowing experiences at the hospital, Charlotte begins to wonder whether it might have been better if she had been turned away.It doesn't take a genius to figure out what is actually happening at the hospital, the 'lunatics have taken over the asylum' schtick being a premise that should be familiar to most seasoned horror fans, but S.F. Brownrigg's Don't Look In The Basement still proves to be an entertaining piece of drive-in fun thanks to its well defined collection of nutters: lobotomised, popsicle-sucking Sam (Bill McGhee); Judge Oliver W.
Cameron (Gene Ross), who continuously mumbles courtroom phrases; old Mrs. Callingham (Rhea MacAdams), who recites William Allingham's creepy poem The Fairies and warns Charlotte of impending doom; cackling loon Danny (Jessie Kirby), who delights in teasing the other patients; Harriet (Camilla Carr), who thinks her doll is a real baby; army nut Sergeant Jaffee (Hugh Feagin); and best of all, Allyson King (Betty Chandler), whose rejection by a series of men has left her with a craving for love (ie., she tries to jump any man who goes near her).This convincingly crazy set of characters, plus a bit of gore and nudity, reasonable direction from Brownrigg (who also gave us the impressive white trash horror Scum of the Earth), and a solid turn from Playboy covergirl Holotik, all go to turn an otherwise rather predictable, low budget piece of exploitation into a very watchable psycho shocker..
She is upset to learn that the doctor has died,leaving his assistant Doctor Masters in charge.She is unnerved by the inmates including a crazy Judge,a shell-shocked Vietnam vet,a catatonic and a creepy nympho,but is soon befriended by a hulking black man Sam.She needs all the friends she can get as people are dying all around her."Don't Look in the Basement" is my first horror film of S.F Brownrigg.Despite its low-budget it manages to provide some genuine chills plus a nice amount of cheap gore including a particularly nasty scene with a desk-spindle through an eyeball.The climax of inmates taking control over mental asylum is an intense melange of wild camera-work,gore and piercing screams.8 out of 10..
What starts out as a wonderful job opportunity for a pretty, young nurse named Charlotte Beale at the Stephens Sanitarium soon turns nightmarish after she discovers the dangerous mental patients have free run of the asylum.Positives: This has several intense sequences which should prove pleasing to Horror and particularly Gore fans.
It worked for me on the level of a wierd bad dream, not to be taken seriously, but experienced like you experience a movie like "Freaks", or "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (not nearly a classic like those movies, I'm only talking about the disturbing, gripping quality it shares to some degree with those movies)I'm not saying that this is a great, or even really good movie, but if you like clever low budget flicks with strange scenes and characters, "Don't Look in the Basement" is definitely worth checking out..
Every time I watch this movie I am impressed by the complete economy of the film, from the compact, totally self-contained plot with a puzzling beginning and an all too horrible ending, the engaging performances by what was essentially a group of non-professional actors, and a prevading sense of dread and claustrophobia that effectively consumes the narrarive with a certain inevitability which is all the more terrifying because the viewers know what is going on long before the hero[es], with the only question being when are they going to wake up & smell the coffee?Shot on a dental floss budget in Brownrigg's native Texas at an old palatial manor that nicely serves as the setting for a private sanitorium, DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT is another intriguing twist on the good old Edgar Allan Poe tome about inmates taking over the asylum just before an otherwise "normal" outsider unwittingly joins the ranks without realizing until it is far too late that not all is what it seems, they are totally cut off & beyond any outside help, and inevitably find their own sanity questioned as the madness spins out of control -- The Original STAR TREK TV series had a go at this with their WHOM GODS DESTROY episode from 1968, Juan Moctezuma gave the proceedings a peyote fueled Mexican psychedelic trip in DR.
But that's all a part of working in such a radical psychiatric health care environment, Ms. Master's informs her, and she goes about her oddly defined "rounds" that consist of wearing as leg defining a nurse outfit as you can find in a 42nd Street fetish boutique and getting to know the inmates.Allysson is a obsessive compulsive nymphomaniac with homicidal tendancies who likes to take off her shirt & provide the film with some T & A between fits of histrionics; Harriet is a young former mother who let her child die in a stupid accident and now dotes on a beat-up old doll that she is also homicidally protective of; The Seargant is an actual seargeant [and implied Vietnam vet] who's negligence led to the death of his platoon, and now watches from the window with binoculars for the approach of an unseen enemy; Jennifer is a Phish fan who couldn't score a ticket to the New Year's Eve Show and went insane & likes to scarf down nembutols and other barbituates when nobody is looking, and likewise has hidden homicidal tendancies linked to her inability to find a bra; Judge Cameron is apparently a homicidal pervert who became obsessed with his own sense of power and now likes to chop things up with axes; Ms. Callingham is an aged poet who serves as a sort of soothsaying old hag from MACBETH before the cat gets her tongue; and Danny is an insane idiot who was included in the cast as the random element that the plot cannot control, and who's antics serve as the real catalyst for the series of tragedies & murders that ultimately take place in this dark, old, creepy house in the middle of nowhere.The house itself is a wonderful set, with a threadbare early 1970's decor that is remarkable in it's unremarkableness, with a fantastic use of color achieved by subtle ambient lighting.
After a long discussion about the position(which is quite an awkward scene as the two debate about Beale's being sent a letter by Stephens getting a job at the clinic with Masters often reminding her that he is no longer in charge)Masters agrees to let her work in the nursing position, but the good Doctor may not be who she seems..The assortment of loonies includes Sam(Bill McGee)a simple-minded child-man who was Stephens' last victim of lobotomy, Jennifer(Harryette Warren)a woman who needs an adult to comfort her as she wallows at Masters' heel like a puppy, Danny(Jessie Kirby)a trouble-making annoyance often trying to steal the fake baby of disturbed Harriet(Camilla Carr), Allyson(Betty Chandler)a sexy nympho who just wants to be loved and hops at any man she sees, & "Sergeant" Jaffee(Hugh Feagin)your typical case of soldier who hasn't escaped the madness of war.The film shows Masters' unorthodox methods of running the clinic with allowing the patients to roam free with the doors to all rooms without locks calling into question..and, not to mention, the fact that Oliver is still allowed to walk around despite just chopping Dr. Stephens with an axe.
I personally have a soft spot for horror films that are set in hospitals and asylums so I had a good feeling about watching this "Don't Look in the Basement", even though its reputation is doubtful.
One of which, scared me to utter death: Don't Look in the Basement.This was one of those B-movies – EXTREMELY low-budget – films that caused me little sleep.