Basements hold a creepy connotation. For many people, this connotation has to do with the fact that basements seem “hidden” and “secret,” and that connotation has allowed the trope of creepy basements to continue through the years. Take a look at the 14 scariest basements in movie and TV, so you can judge for yourself which one is truly the scariest.
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1. The Exorcist
The Exorcist is itself a pretty spooky movie, even if basements don’t play into the scariness too heavily. It’s where the main character first talks to a demon with a Ouija board, which sets off the rest of the movie’s plot.
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2. Misery
The basement in Misery isn’t the main source of the scares. The fear comes more from Annie Wilkes, the serial killer main character, who uses the damp, rat-infested basement to keep her victim from signaling for help.
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3. A Quiet Place
A soundproof underground cellar provides the backdrop for portions of A Quiet Place, where the Abbott family attempts to keep their baby safe. Unfortunately, when a broken pipe causes it to flood, it brings in the movie’s main attraction: noise-sensitive monsters.
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4. Parasite
A large amount of the movie Parasite takes place in a basement; the South Korean family that’s in the center of the movie lives in a basement apartment, referred to as a banjiha. The basement serves as a backdrop for some truly spooky events.
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5. The Grudge
This is the lowest-rated movie on the list, but it’s a horror mainstay for a reason: it introduced a lot of tropes to the horror movie world. One of the movie’s terrifying scenes occurs in the basement, lit by only a flashlight.
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6. Rocky Horror Picture Show
The basement of a British castle is where Dr. Frank-N-Furter does his laboratory work in this movie. The Medusa Transducer he keeps in his basement lab can turn people into statues.
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7. The Evil Dead
In The Evil Dead, the Deadites lived in a fruit cellar underneath a home in rural Tennessee. Adding to the creepiness factor, the home used to film this movie has burned down since the filming happened.
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8. Stranger Things
There are a number of creepy things that happen in Stranger Things, and while the basement isn’t privy to all of them, it’s still part of the plot. Two main characters call each other from the basement regularly.
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9. The Amityville Horror
The Amityville Horror spotlights a creepy home in Long Island. Included in the home’s basement is an extremely small hidden room, which is painted red and measures only four feet by five feet.
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10. A Nightmare On Elm Street
The dream world of A Nightmare on Elm Street is a truly terrifying place to be. Freddy uses his boiler room for torture and murder, making it one of the scariest basement rooms on this list.
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11. Psycho
One of the scariest scenes in Psycho comes when a main character goes into an underground fruit cellar. Here, she finds Norman Bates’ mother — enshrined for all time as a mummified corpse.
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12. The Evil
The basement is one of the main spooky elements of the movie The Evil — the home in which much of it takes place is built over hot sulfur pits. The basement turns out to be able to teleport them to a spooky world.
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13. Get Out
This basement receives the honor of the second scariest basement in film. The main character is strapped to a chair in the basement and put under hypnosis to go to the “Sunken Place.”
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14. The Silence of the Lambs
According to Ohio Basement Authority, the scariest basement in all of film is that of The Silence of the Lambs. The antagonist Buffalo Bill has a well in his basement, where he starves kidnapped women to make it easier for him to remove their skin.
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Conclusion
There are all sorts of terrifying basements out there. Whether or not you have a basement or you’ve ever had a creepy experience in a basement, it’s clear that the trope of basements being a haunting atmosphere isn’t about to go away any time soon.
