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SPOILERS ALERT:


Poindexter "Fool" Williams is a resident of a Los Angeles ghetto. He and his family are being evicted from their apartment by their landlords, the Robesons. The Robesons, believed to be a married couple, call themselves Mommy and Daddy, and buy poorly maintained apartment buildings, purposefully raising the rent to evict the occupants so they can sell the buildings to gentrifiers. They have a daughter named Alice, whom they abuse severely. Fool's mother has cancer but cannot afford treatment. A man named Leroy convinces Fool to help him commit burglary to pay for her surgery.

Leroy, his associate Spenser, and Fool break into the Robesons' house by using Spenser to pose as a municipal worker. The Robesons leave the home shortly after, but Spenser does not return. Fool and Leroy break into the house to look for Spenser, and Fool finds his dead body along with a large group of strange, pale children in a locked pen inside a dungeon-like basement.

The Robesons return, and Fool flees while Leroy is shot to death by Daddy. Fool runs into another section of the house where he meets Alice. She tells him that the people under the stairs were children who broke the "see/hear/speak no evil" rules of the Robeson household. The children have degenerated into cannibalism to survive, and Alice has avoided this fate by obeying the rules without question. A boy named Roach, whose tongue was removed as punishment for calling out for help to escape, also evades the Robesons by hiding in the walls.

Fool is discovered by Daddy and is thrown to the cannibalistic children to die. However, Roach helps Fool escape, but is critically wounded. As he dies, he gives Fool a small bag of gold coins and a written plea to save Alice. Fool reunites with Alice, and the two escape into the passageways between the walls. Daddy releases his Rottweiler dog, Prince, into the walls to kill them. Fool tricks Daddy into stabbing Prince, and he and Alice reach the attic where they find an open window above a pond. Alice is too afraid to jump, and Fool is forced to escape without her, but he promises to return for her.

Fool learns that he has enough gold to pay for his mother's surgery and ten years worth of rent. He also finds out that Mommy and Daddy are actually brother and sister, coming from a long line of disturbed, inbred family members who built their fortune by running a funeral home, selling cheap coffins for expensive prices. They later entered the real estate business, leading them to become greedier and more unhinged. Fool vows to help right the wrongs. He reports the Robesons to child welfare, and as the police investigate the house, Fool sneaks back in and reveals to Alice that she is not their daughter, as she was stolen from her birth parents, as were all the other children in the basement.

Mommy finds out that Alice knows the truth and believes that Fool has turned her against them, so she attempts to kill Alice. However, her actions are witnessed by a crowd of the Robesons' evictees, exposing their crimes. Fool frees the cannibal children from the basement and they kill Mommy, with Alice's help.

Daddy finds Fool at the vault, where Fool sets off explosives, demolishing the house and causing the money to blow up through the crematorium chimney and into the crowd of people outside. Daddy is killed in the explosion, and Alice and Fool reunite in the basement. Meanwhile, the people outside claim the money distributed by the blast, and the freed children venture into the night.

"The People Under the Stairs" (1991) VHS