Don't Look in the Basement (1973) - aka The Forgotten, Director S.F. Brownrigg takes a script written by Tim Pope and Thomas Pope and brings sort of on the nose story to the screen, but overall it lacks movement and the tension needed to make it a really good film. It is a story about a young psychiatric nurse Charlotte Beale (Rosie Holotik) arriving at her new job at Stevens Sanitarium. The dramatic irony is that Dr. Stevens (Michael Harvey) the man that has hired her, has been killed by one of the patients "the Judge" (Gene Ross) and another patient Geraldine Master (Annabelle Weenick) is posing as the new head of the sanitarium. Okay before you start giving me shit for spoiling the plot, stop. The premise is known to the audience right from the beginning of the film. Not only that the writers and director do very little to hide the subterfuge from the viewers. It really is the major flaw of the film that everything about the secret is not hidden in anyway. We know from the start and watch as Charlotte eventually figures it out.There is some really fine acting in this one, particularly co-lead Weenick who had a long career (1961-98) before her death in 2003 at the age of 78. She carries a lot of the emotion in the film as the control freak with the secret she does not want Charlotte to know. When the rest of the patients start unwinding and her position becomes threatened she does the only thing a mentally ill control freak can do and starts killing them off. Other character well played are Sam (Bill McGhee) who plays a lobotomized man child, and the Judge (Ross) playing an uptight rules obsessed patient. The rest of the cast play there stereotypes, Harriot (Camilla Carr) obsessing over a doll like it was her baby. She also appeared in the 2015 Don't Look in the Basement 2. That film was directed by son of SF Brownrigg, Anthony and uses several of the original locations. Danny (Jessie Kirby) playing something of a screechy adult 11 yr old trickster. Jennifer a withdrawn moper with a dangerous side. Stg. Jaffee (Hugh Feagin) war veteran with a bad case of PTSD, Mrs. Callingham (Rhea MacAdams) an old lady with dementia, and Allyson(Betty Chandler) a sex and relationship obsessed woman looking to have a man "love" her, all the time and with borderline tendencies that keep that from happening. All are okay and make a hodgepodge of stereotypes that play off each other to create situation that Charlotte has to deal with. Gene Ross also had a long career and was in some notable films like Halloween 4 : The Return of Michael Myers and David Lynch's Lost Highway.
Charlotte is slow on the uptake and can't see through the thin veal of sanity Masters is projecting which sets up a classic third act when all the hidden bodies are found and the true nature of the situation she is in is revealed. Even though she is technically the final girl she has very little agency in discovering the truth. Instead of being proactive and figuring out the weaknesses in the reality being presented to her she just goes along trying to deal with the situations that working with the mentally ill present. In the end it is really the patients inability to keep a secret more than anything Charlotte does that exposes the charade. Even then in a panic she tries to flee from the house, and in not finding an unlocked door ends up trapped in the basement. It is only Sam's decision to help her that she survives. We are left with her standing outside in the rain while the patients kill each other inside.Needless to say this is not really getting a recommendation on this blog. Although it is part of the early seventies horror I like it just doesn't have enough to it for me to give it a thumb's up.
