The Spiral Staircase (2007) User Reviews

I was nine years old when this movie came out. I saw it with my parents. (I'm 71 now.) It scared the hell outta me! I slept in the bathroom with my dog close by for thee nights in a row. Then I saw it on TV about 15 years ago...and it is still a scary movie. Psychopath (we don't know who until the end) hides at the bottom of a spiral staircase leading to the basement. We see only his feet as he crounhes in the darkness. As women come down, one by one, we see their horribly distorted faces the way he sees them in his psychotic mind...for example, a mute woman is shown as a person without a mouth!...and then he strangles them in a surreal scene. In it's day (1946) it was a real scary movie...but did not have the blood and guts of a chainsaw massacre, or dead people turning into flesh-eating zombies, which directors seem to think is necessary today to scare an audience.

06/13/2008, 5:50 am