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Poster for The People Under the Stairs
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Released
1991 · FILM

The People Under the Stairs

A clever kid trapped inside a twisted landlord’s fortified home must outwit murderous owners and the nightmarish creatures lurking in its walls to survive and expose their deadly secret.

“In every neighborhood, there is one house that adults whisper about and children cross the street to avoid.”

Directed by
Wes Craven
Written by
Wes Craven
Rated
MPA · R
Runtime
103 min
ComedyHorrorMystery
Streaming on
  • Paramount+

Synopsis

A young boy becomes trapped inside a fortified home owned by a mysterious couple and soon discovers the true nature of the home's homicidal inhabitants, as well as secret creatures hidden deep within the walls.

Credits

Actors
Editor
Production Designer
Director of Photography
Writers
Director

Related titles

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How many hands made this film

The scale of the collaboration

Principal cast & crew: 19

These are the principals we have on file — the full crew ran to the hundreds. Every film this size was made by far more hands than any credits list ever names.

Why a floor?

This is a minimum, not a total. We only count the credits we’ve captured so far, and coverage is uneven — a blockbuster might show a few hundred names while another of the same size shows a couple dozen. The real crews all ran into the thousands. The number here only grows as full credits are enriched — so we frame it as a floor, never a headcount.

Craft leads on file

Edited by James CoblentzShot by Sandi SisselScored by Don PeakeDesigned by Bryan Jones

Box Office

1991 · Box office

💰 Box-office hit — grossed 5.2× its budget

Why 2.5×?

Cinemas keep roughly half of every ticket sold, and a wide release’s marketing often costs about as much again as the film — so a movie needs to gross around 2.5× its production budget just to break even theatrically. It’s a rule of thumb, not the studio’s ledger (home video and streaming come later).

Worldwide gross

$31.4M

Budget$6.0M
Worldwide gross$31.4M
break-even (2.5×)

US & Canada: $24.2M — 77% of worldwide · International: $7.2M (23%)

Also known as

  • Das Haus der Vergessenende
  • Wes Cravens Haus der Vergessenende
  • Le Sous-sol de la peurfr
  • La casa nerait

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