Joshua (2006)

Warning: do not watch this movie if you are hungover. The dizzying effect of some portions rival Cloverfield, ugh.

So the movie begins with a drunk girl is flailing around in some madman's house, and this is why my girlfriends and I don't let each other wander off wasted. Shortly after, the same man is spotted picking up another tipsy girl in a bar and really, these girls need to have more common sense whilst consuming bevs in public.

In another location, the main character, Kelby, gets a call (on an old rotary phone of all things) that his father, who is on death row for killing his baby sister, is dead. He decides to go on home for the funeral where apparently some fucked up shit is waiting for him.

It turns out that when Kelby and a few of his friends were kids, they found this baby in the garbage and decided to keep him. They raised the kid as a "spawn of Satan" in this old cabin in the woods, chaining him to the wall, torturing him, and having him eat live animals, and eventually humans. Of course, Kelby thought this whole thing was over when they burned the cabin to the ground, with the kid in it.

But, of course, it's not. Creepy barfly-snatcher (James) has something living in his basement. We suspect it's Joshua, who somehow survived the blaze, but none of this is made clear quite yet. The third wheel to this whole shenanigans, Sam, loses his cool, chains everyone up, and makes Kelby tell the story of what happened. And boy, this whole thing is truly sick. And just when I thought I was becoming desensitized to all of this...

Kelby's poor fiancee, who was just along for moral support, gets grabbed up by James and held as ransom until Kelby will come over to his house of horrors and straighten all this crap out. And ohhhh, there certainly is some crap going on over there. The twist to this movie was great, and more suprising than most I've seen lately. All in all, a creepy and original movie, with average acting I guess, but I love that the lead character looks like Ash (wonder if that was planned?!)

Grade: B (The People Under the Stairs - freaky people living in the basement makes for good horror fun)