‘The Man In My Basement’ Review – A Cluttered, Uneven Story That Never Leaves The Basement

From the title, “The Man in My Basement,” there is a suggestion of a dark descent into not only the underdwellings of a home, but also the underdwelling of trauma. The movie boasts an impressive cast, including Willem Dafoe, who delivers a standout performance. He ratchets up the creepy factor to an eleven. The problem is that the plot twists in the wind, wasting the cast’s talents on a story that is like the worst of basements: cluttered, overstuffed, and in need of organization.

In the African American neighborhood of Sag Harbor, New York, we find Charles Blakey (Corey Hawkins) down on his luck. His debts are piling up, and he faces the grim prospect of losing his ancestral home. One day, a knock on the door brings a lucrative, if not bizarre, proposition. Anniston Bennet (Willem Dafoe), a businessman, makes an offer to rent Charles’s basement. The offer is more than enough money to clear Charles’s debts, and he accepts it happily. Of course, upon making this deal, Charles instantly regrets it. He discovers Bennet intends to keep himself locked in the basement. His reasons become terrifyingly clear as he becomes involved in a dangerous game with his new tenant that unearths trauma and pain that affects them both.

There exists a compelling thread related to racial identity that the movie appears to address only on a surface level. Now, this is a limitation of time, but when the film fails to go anywhere in the span of two hours, we are left wondering what point the film is striving to make.  

The revelation of Dafoe’s character renting the basement to lock himself behind self-made bars is an intriguing premise. This unsettling fact, coupled with Charles’s discovery of African masks in the basement, makes for a doubly intriguing set. The masks prove to be a conduit, attempting to explain mysteries in Charles’s past. By all accounts, we seem ready for a dark spiral into ghostly territory and unhinged madness. The problem is that the movie is mostly window dressing that goes nowhere. 

In addition to the premise, the film boasts too many subplots that paint the picture of this being an episode of This Old House. There is an attempt to tackle white privilege and racial identity while addressing one’s heritage. The problem is that the movie ties itself into knots trying to address the myriad plots. It ultimately forgets to be thrilling or even remotely interesting. Any efforts for Charles to reckon with his past, rooted in his upbringing and heritage, are passed over in favor of hackneyed chills and toothless scares. 

There is an undercurrent that Charles is unraveling, stemming from his discovery of the masks in his basement. The movie resorts to cliche-ridden tricks, all the while sprinkling in a half-baked story over Charles’s financial woes. Hawkins, like Dafoe, does what he can with this rudderless script and at least gives a captivating performance. It is a testament to their strengths as actors that even when the script is invisible, we can at least care about their characters. 

The film’s most decisive moments are the exchanges between Charles and Bennet. The odd dynamic and power struggle are far more compelling than any of the ghostly elements. A Faustian bargain is at the center of their agreement, with a double-edged meaning. Now Dafoe is clearly living it up, playing up the eccentric businessman. He devolves into his usual wide-eyed machinations; it is only regrettable that the script never reaches for any real depth or nuance. Bennet is apparently a monster with a conscience, but neither his arc nor revelations have much teeth, other than the maniacal presence that is Dafoe. 

The characters engage in moral and racial debates that never reach beyond the surface level. The Man in My Basement strives to be a bold treatise on power structures that, if given ample time to develop, would be topical to our modern world, but do not expect this movie to elicit much of a reaction. The end result is a vexing question that frustrates rather than contemplates. 

The Man in My Basement is currently available to stream on Hulu and Disney+.