VCI brings us a GRINDHOUSE DOUBLE FEATURE of the original "Don't" films with DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT and DON'T OPEN THE DOOR! on Blu-ray/DVD combo.

Nurse Jane (Jessie Lee Fulton, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW) has had all she can take working at the Stephens Sanitarium where the patients are allowed to wander freely and Dr. Stephens (Michael Harvey, THE VELVET TRAP) eschews surgery and drugs in favor pushing them to the extremes of their obsessions. When purity-obsessed Judge Cameron (Gene Ross, HALLOWEEN 4: THE RETURN OF MICHAEL MYERS) accidentally sinks an axe in Dr. Stephens' back, Dr. Geraldine Masters (Annabelle Weenick, DEADLY BLESSING) quickly takes command only to learn that she is soon to be short-staffed. Someone hastens Jane's departure by planting murderously protective mother Harriet's (Camilla Carr, LOGAN'S RUN) among the nurse's belongings. Masters is also surprised by the sudden arrival of nurse Charlotte Beale (Rosie Holotik, HORROR HIGH) who Stephens hired to replace Jane. Masters is against taking Charlotte on until she realizes she would have to explain what happened to Dr. Stevens if Charlotte returns to her former position. Charlotte barely has time to settle into the sanitarium's routine before elderly Mrs. Callingham (Rhea MacAdams) is warning her to leave and childlike Sam (Bill McGhee, QUADROON) – whose lobotomy was Dr. Stephens impetus for adapting a more radical approach to mental illness – is ostensibly under orders from the dead doctor to protect her. When Charlotte discovers Mrs. Callingham with her tongue cut out after once again warning her to leave, Masters insists that the hallucination-prone woman bit it off herself. Charlotte, however, is continually unnerved by the behavior of the other patients – including nympho Allyson (Betty Chandler), shell-shocked Sergeant Jaffee (Hugh Feagin, IN THE YEAR 2889), withdrawn Jennifer (Harryette Warren), and the childlike but more mischievous Danny (Jessie Kirby) – and finds it all but impossible to leave (as does anyone else who wanders in from the outside world).

Originally titled THE FORGOTTEN, S.F. Bronwrigg's memorable debut film was released in most U.S. markets by AIP-offshoot Hallmark as DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT as well as reissues as DEATH WARD 13 and THE SNAKE PIT with the same kind of splotchy background replacement title card seen on their THE HOUSE THAT VANISHED retitling of SCREAM AND DIE and utilizing the "only a movie" tag that also appeared on their trailers for LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, THE HOUSE THAT VANISHED, DON'T OPEN THE WINDOW (aka LET SLEEPING CORPSES LIE), and Mario Bava's BAY OF BLOOD (as TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE), DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT owes much to Edgar Allen Poe's "The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether" but Brownrigg's scripting and direction is actually good at keeping the viewer in suspense as to whether the inmates have taken over or if Masters is just a sadistic tyrant making a power grab (or both). After the relatively tight set-up, the middle meanders a bit but in such a fashion as to give depth to each of the inmates – in their interaction with Charlotte, Masters, or with each other – demonstrating that they do not all share or accept each other's delusions and engendering sympathy for them (particularly Sam) while also acknowledging how dangerous each can be. The third act's attempt at delirium is only so-so, but it does become considerably more vicious, bloody and creepy (even if the actual visit to the basement is not the highlight suggested by the title). The late Brownrigg got his beginnings working as a sound and film editor for fellow Texan no-budget exploitation auteur Larry Buchanan (ZONTAR: THE THING FROM VENUS) with whom his productions shared common cast and crew members. Holotik, Ross, Harvey, and Weenick would also appear in the Texas-lensed Rod Serling-narrated anthology ENCOUNTER WITH THE UNKNOWN in a dreary, drawn-out retelling of the hitchhiking ghost girl urban legend. Ross and Feagin would also appear in Brownrigg's DON'T OPEN THE DOOR! and Carr would also appear in his SCUM OF THE EARTH before taking center stage in KEEP MY GRAVE OPEN (which also featured Fulton).

Twelve years after her mother was brutally murdered, model Amanda Post (Susan Bracken) returns to The House of the Seasons – so named after the Jefferson, Texas historical home where the film was shot – in Allerton after receiving an anonymous phone call with news about her dying grandmother Harriet (BASEMENT's McAdams). She arrives to find that Dr. Crawther (James N. Harrell, RACE WITH THE DEVIL) refusing to have Harriet admitted to the hospital, Judge Stemple (BASEMENT's Ross) wanting to buy the house off of her, and eccentric local museum curator Claude Kearn (Larry O'Dwyer) eager to get his hands on the house's treasures for his collection. Amanda reluctantly calls her middle-aged doctor ex-boyfriend Frank (BASEMENT's Feagin) to get her grandmother admitted to the hospital against the objections of Crawther and Stemple. Amanda's only friend in the town appears to be Kearn until she discovers his secret exhibit of her mother's murder room and angrily insists that the items he took from the house be returned, whereupon Kearn tries to strike a deal with Stemple and Crawther who he suspects of hastening Harriet's final days. Amanda starts receiving harassing and obscene phone calls that become increasingly threatening, and someone in her mother's nightgown starts knocking off anyone who might help or hurt Amanda.

Brownrigg's follow-up to DON’T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT demonstrates quite a leap in visual assuredness better suited to the story thanks to some nice production value from the landmark locations, better photography and lighting from BASEMENT's Robert Alcott, and a stylish score by Brownrigg regular Robert Farrar. The visual motif of dolls and mannequins, visual depictures of mental delirium, and sequence in the candy-colored cupola of the house with hits the windows of its four sides tinted stained in different colors to represent the four seasons – along with some striking use of color in the wardrobe – make one wonder whether Brownrigg had seen some Mario Bava between the two films (particularly KILL BABY KILL and HATCHET FOR THE HONEYMOON). The Southern Gothic thriller aspect is overfamiliar – and it is very hard to believe the heroine would not be able to tell who the caller is by his diction and accent – but the film manages to be quite sweaty and sleazy without any onscreen nudity. The gore is also rather restrained with the goriest bit in the opening rather than saving it all for the end as in BASEMENT. The former film's Weenick has a throwaway role here but also serves as the film's dialogue director.

BASEMENT was released on VHS by Gorgon Video and VidAmerica in the 1980s. It made its digital debut courtesy of VCI's DVD which featured a colorful fullscreen transfer that would serve as the source for several budget DVD releases from Alpha Video, Diamond Entertainment, Brentwood, St. Clair Vision, and Mill Creek among others (as well as presumably the source for its airing on the short-lived "Elvira's Movie Macabre" revival series). VCI would reissue the film in a two-disc set with DON'T OPEN THE DOOR in a 16:9 transfer that was less colorful but otherwise fair (they later reissued the double feature as a single disc "Scream Theater" release). When Film Chest announced a digitally-remastered DVD, one would have hoped for something along the lines of their SILENT NIGHT BLOODY NIGHT but their interlaced transfer looked like another rip of the original fullscreen VCI disc with additional compression from an MPEG-2 re-encoding, excessive sharpening, and ghosting.

First out of the gate with a Blu-ray release was BRINKvision with an HD master purported to be transferred from the only surviving 35mm print (although this is doubtful given VCI's different transfers), and the archival element presented at 1.37:1 in a pillarboxed MPEG-2 1080p24 encode of a sourcefull of scratches, arc burns, dents, dings, jump cuts, and some brief slowing down of the image too keep the sound in sync when there are missing frames; that said, the HD image (which has undergone some digital cleanup as shown in the minute-long silent restoration split-screen demo) was a step up from the VCI discs in spite of the damage. The film was accompanied by an audio commentary by Brownrigg's son Tony who was four years old when the film was made and conveys a genuine affection for the film and its stars (particularly Weenick, Carr, and Weenick's mother MacAdams), a few of whom he would act with on the stage in later years. He reveals that his father had wanted to make a sequel to the film and had developed one with a paranormal theme in the eighties but it was never filmed, and he discusses the details in the film that he used as jump-off points for his sequel. Each appearance onscreen of a performer leads to anecdotes and trivia, and he reveals that Holotik is working in real estate now (and did not want to get back into acting for the sequel) while Chandler works in high-end antiques. Cod Red in conjunction with Dark Force Entertainment followed them with a double feature edition with the mismatched companion feature CHAOS which we have not had a chance to compare.

VCI's "Grindhouse Double Feature" is a mixed bag. On the one hand, their 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen transfer of DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT comes from a different print without the damage of the earlier Blu-ray, the first on DVD and Blu-ray to feature a title card running over an uninterrupted background rather than the cutaway to the splotchy paint Hallmark background and replacement title card. The pre-credits sequence looks dupey, soft, poorly detailed, with solarized shadows and faint halos around light sources, almost as if it had come from an earlier master. The image improves a little once the titles start – making one wonder if the pre-credits sequence was lost from this element or actually an alternate cut without the inciting incident – but the contrasts are still harsh due to the overlit sets and the blacks still solarize - exacerbated by the pumping up of the color - while DNR is evident but not as smeary and waxy as some of VCI's earlier offerings. Released theatrically by Cinema Shares, DON'T OPEN THE DOOR came to home video from Video Gems with a cover that marketed it as a standard slasher film. VCI issued it on DVD in 2002 with an anamorphic transfer, and again in 2007 on the aforementioned Grindhouse Double Feature DVD with their first anamorphic transfer of DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT. Taken from a 2K master, VCI's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen DON'T OPEN THE DOOR benefits from the clean print but deep blacks are still solarized and one can see the effect of the DNR pass when looking at the unrestored deleted scenes (see below) suggesting that an untreated version might have been perfectly acceptable given the limitations of the elements. Both films have LPCM 2.0 mono tracks that are perfectly serviceable, more so than the English SDH subtitles which sometimes use "(mumbles)" over dialogue that is actually intelligible.