"A Los Angeles serial killer kidnaps a famous musician and drags him to a dungeon-like basement."
Yesterday, I reviewed The Silence, which while it was in production during the same time as A Quiet Place, was released a fair time afterwards. In general terms, that would categorise The Silence as a Mockumentary; a low-budget film that exploits another major motion picture by using a similar concept or similar subject matter (other examples would be San Andreas and San Andreas Quake, or Hercules and The Legend of Hercules; both of which had a big Hollywood film starring Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, and a cheaper copycat film released at the same time to trick viewers into seeing it thinking it's the former films).
The Basement could very well be another Mockbuster. With the recent conclusion of M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable trilogy, The Basement puts forward a trailer that brings up a plot that highly borrows from the second film of that trilogy, Split.
This film has been created on a very small budget. Almost shot completely within a single room, and consisting of pretty much only three characters, the film feels along the same vein as the original Saw film, though the actual content feels more of an amalgamation of Split and Hostel, with a supposed emphasis on a character with multiple personalities, and some torture porn and gore thrown in for good measure.
I say "supposed emphasis" because if I hadn't seen the trailer, I would not have known that one of the characters had multiple personalities. For sure, the character did portray multiple roles (actor Jackson David does deserve credit for a very good set of performances there), the script was missing that depth that properly conveyed that component of his character. There was no sense of conflict between the different roles, no mentioning of the other characters or memory gaps. It just didn't feel genuine.
Also, his victim (played by Cayleb Long), while he did have a rather realistic performance as to how we would expect a real person to respond to the situation, he received little character development. Combine this with the fact that one of the first things we see him do is deceitful, the audience can't trust his actions at all, so his words mean nothing. You don't find yourself on his side because you have no idea where he truly stands
With a low budget and minimal sets, The Basement consists mostly of two characters in a room sitting in chairs talking to each other. The only way that the film will succeed is with a really strong script and story backing it up. The Basement does not have that. There is no sense of direction and as the audience approach the end of the film, you really start to question what the point of the film is.
A lot comes down to Mischa Barton's character, which is foreshadowed quite clearly by her face taking up half of the DVD movie poster, and her name the only name worth mentioning on said poster. Her role is alluded to as being very significant to the film, but she takes up maybe 5 minutes of screentime in total for the film.
The only feature of the film that garners any form of reaction is the twist, which is slightly predictable but will still come across as a shock to the majority of the audience. Unfortunately, the film spends further time on it ensuring that every single person watching is aware of what the twist was, even the 5-year-old that logged in to someone else's Netflix profile. The movie treats its audience like uneducated idiots and provides no depth or intrigue to its dialogue.
If you just want to watch some torture porn like in Hostel, there a couple of reasonably done scenes that may interest you. If you are an immature young adult that wants to see a boob, there's one in the opening scene. If you want a compelling performance with a script that keeps you guessing, well you better keep on looking. The Basement offers nothing that you couldn't get anywhere else.