Why Are Basements Scary? Underground Spaces in Movies and TV 

What's your favorite underground space in Film/TV that I didn't talk about?

There's also the idea that basements are also often unfinished. Something being unfinished means you haven't laid claim fully to it, allowing something else to move it and claim it for itself

4:56 Now You See It lives in his moms basement confirmed

'Home Alone' and 'Silence of the Lambs' are not two movies one often hears in the same sentence...

Now I see it...

That scene in Zodiac is one of the most terrifying things I've ever seen.

Fifteen minutes that felt like a one-hour documentary.

God that scene from Parasite made a pit open up in my stomach. Genuinely chilling.

There's a great moment in "Alien 3" where Ripley decides to confront the creature and says to Aaron "It's just down there. In the basement." To which Aaron replies: "This whole place is a basement!" She chuckles and retorts "It's a metaphor" Soooooo good, excellent essay as always!

I'm Thinking of Ending Things, The 6th Sense, and The Orphanage are all movies that use a basement to hide a truth that the characters can't face. Great video, thanks!

The hatch in Lost

"The prophet Orpheus entering the treacherous underworld to rescue Yoorie-dicey"

The line "They can let you make meth without the cops finding out" would have an entirely different energy if you hadn't shown the Breaking Bad clip.

Silence of the Lambs has a basement within a basement lol

Not mentioned: "Underground" being used in the sense of being alternative to the mainstream or resistance against injustice.

"Skyler...WHERE IS THE MONEY???!!!"

That spoiler alert was a little dry. As someone who just finished season two of Breaking Bad, this opened a lot of doors.

One thing to note on the comfort of basements is the Freudian symbol of caves as womb regression and the comfort he theorized it provided! Loved the video.

Not many people have basements... in California.

The basement in attack on titan is also one of my favorite examples and is used as the beginning of a climax very well

The fly episode of Breaking Bad was also a bottle episode where Walt spends time wrestling with the fact that Jessie has been dealing on the side. At the end of the episode after he defeats the fly, he also addresses the issue he has with Jessie. The use of the underground lab is integral to the episode. Walt doesn't get to leave until he's dealt with both issues.

Another great example of the use of a basement is in The Sopranos. Whenever Tony meets his associates at his house to talk about business, they head to the basement to talk where its safe for them to talk about their business. Showing the two worlds of Tony Soprano one as a caring father, husband who's a hardworker upstaits and the other which represents the basement the dark side, his criminal career where he makes some of his decisions that could even let to the murder of someone. One example is when Christopher comes to tell Tony about Adriana being an informant, which will lead to her murder.

I'd argue that's less Freud's id, more Jung's shadow. Basements combine the existential horror of caves with the uncanniness of artifice. Alternatively, *all* land animals bury things to hide them - either to get rid of them or to keep them safe.

It's great to see that you tout the positive aspects of basements here as well as their usual negative connotations. In the script that I am currently working on a building has a basement window that not only provides a non-obvious exit point for one of the characters at the start of Act 2 but also an entry point for the villain at the mid-point reversal.

Ah finally another brilliant video by this amazing channel

That's why here in Mexico they're so rare, the up word is already scary and a basement would be too much

omg this is such a cool video i’ve been waiting for something like this,, basements and attics are one of my biggest fears and this was such an interesting analysis

There's so many readings of the fly episode of BB, this was good man

Great as usual. My favourite example of this in Parasite is when the family flees the home of the rich family and descends further and further.

Watching this from the basement I live in and enjoying the video mate 👍

10:23 Damm capitalism

Love this channel

Joseph Campbell distinguishes between The Belly of the Whale, where a character enters a new world, and The Abyss where a character faces their ultimate fears. Basements may serve those two different purposes, even in the same story.

Yo maybe you could leave a spoiler warning for Breaking Bad too?

Great video.

Carl Jung concept of the “shadow” might be of service here. Also, the deep, dark collective unconscious and archetypes.

Night of the Living Dead. The dramatic tension of that film is whether or not the characters should take refuge in the cellar.

Zodiac has by far the best basement scene

Excellent video mate! It’s shocking how great of a movie Parasite is, and I still have yet to watch Breaking Bad

Great video. I wonder if there is a natural selection reason for fear of the underground as well. Fear of snakes for example.

There are quite a few low budget horror movies that use basements, like American Gothic (1987, I think,) and Don't Look in the Basement (1976 or so,) and The People Under the Stairs. In these kinds of stories, the basement is almost inevitably the place where the worst horrors are hidden. Also, I think the denouement of the web series "Daisy Brown" took place in a basement, if I remember correctly. Daisy getting to the root of the problem, you might say.

I literally live in a basement, so I would greatly appreciate if films stopped trying to make them seem so scary.

Amazing as always.

This perfectly describes my desire to have a basement for potential safety reasons, but also my desire for a slab on grade home, as basements scare the heck out of me.

I love your analyses could you plz do one about the classic cult movie withnail and i? Ive never seen one and i love how you talk about movies with so many details. Thank you so much

I know, it is not a basement, but I feel like Metropolis should have been mentioned, as soon as you talked about the socio-economic hierarchical structures. Nonetheless, great video as always.

The id not only holds our deepest fears but also our darkest desires

You know, fighting in the basement offers a lot of difficulties. Number one being, you're fighting in the basement!

But I haven't seen parasite yet! I guess I'll watch this some other time...

Because they're unnatural - a Floridian

I'll watch this in the morning.

The Fly episode is probably the best episode in BB

Just watched the Sutherland/Churchill Painting portrait scene from the Crown. I'm not sure why I like it but it seems such an extremely well-written scene and beautiful acting that I think you should at least watch it and see if it could become a video.

I would say the same about attics being scary, unexplored and not often used parts of the house, an unknown place because of the lack of presence there by you or anyone else in the house. A place unused means it's unknown (generally), and the unknown loves to take hold of mankind's oldest fear, the fear of that unknown. Or something like that, idk.

1:25 ive always wanted to see Chris Columbus make a horror film after seeing those furnace shots, and now he's doing FNAF

Love the inclusion of SotL, and I think it's interesting to think about Buffalo Bill's character and the fact that HE set up in the basement. Seems like an extension of the ideas you've expressed here. Beyond avoiding being seen and caught, BB's use of the basement could represent a confused desire and suppressed set of emotions.

The fly symbolizes the best use of a metaphor for the entire series in one simple episode.

The Platform would also have been a perfect example for the class hierarchy theory.

Hey, so i know that you have made few videos on Dave and one amazing video on Bo but, can you make a video on Bill Burr?

Adam Sandler in The Wedding SInger "I live in my sisters BASSSSSSSSSSSSSMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENT!"

I was locked up inside the basement's basement. It was so small and dark, and I was so afraid. I dropped my precious ring. But I'll never, ever go back there...

The. Best. Parasite. Analysis. Yet. (and in the least amount of time)

Because our brains are still much like the monkeys and apes to which we are related. We are diurnal and we prefer heights to escape from predators. We're animals of the trees, remember. Thus, there is something about going underground into the darkness that is just 'wrong' in a primal, subconscious way.

Oh now I see it

Fighting in a basement offers a lot of difficulties. Number one being, you're fighting in a basement.

The basement in attack on titan ..

Came here as fast as I could

Basements before knowing what creepypastas were: eh not that bad Basement after watching creepypastas and scary myths: *hell*

The basement in The IT crowd

Something tells me you wanted to mention The Hateful 8 around 13:00

The basement in The Babadook

the only basement that actually feels save is the one from that 70's Show

Every time one of these comes out I try to guess which clips will feature. This time I'm guessing home alone and the girl with the dragon tattoo basement

Love

Also seen in I‘m thinking of ending things

*looks at houses in Texas* . . . we don’t have basements in our homes.

Marcus Ellwood from the Benchwarmers lived in his basement

yesss

Oh shit, you just made me realize i still haven't watched Parasite. Gotta fix that.

13:01 voice crack 😂

Basements are scary ever since I watched evil dead

Parasite is such a fucking amazing film.

What about "Psycho" and finding/revealing Mother in the basement? I'd call it the OG basement! Yeah, basements are dark places where we hide our secrets and store things we don't want to deal with. A metaphor for our subconscious and the unpleasant things we keep there. Attics also can be metaphors for a creepy spaces where we store scary and unwanted things/feelings in fictional works (Flowers in the Attic, Picture of Dorian Gray, others?).

Martyrs is the ultimate underground!

The Sunken Place comes to mind...yikes

People need to watch more then just parasite of Bong Joon Ho movies. Check out "Mother"

Is the bat cave really a basement?

Contains a major spoiler to Hone Alone

If this man doesn’t include the clip from Zodiac...

Basements? Why does my mind go straight to dungeons and thinks about D&D and not about films?

Yeah... but what about attics?

Narrator, pls take a breath. You are not in a basement. BTW, good video.

aww man why didnt you mention LOST

Now do attics!

_Zodiac,_ nuff said

Underground = underworld because that's where you bury people.

Lovely bones could have made the cut for this!

I never understood horror movies making basements scary because in my country, most houses have basements that are functional spaces.

what’s scarier, basements or attics? i think attics are for some reason

“the loser who still lives in his mom’s basement, although nowadays it feels like a smart financial decision” - THANK YOU 👏