The Basement



Jeff is a security guard at a hotel in Portland, Maine. While doing his nightly rounds in the building’s enormous basement he’s accosted by some unseen force in one of the building’s many rooms. Initially he assumes it was a homeless person, but by the next night he seems to have become convinced that it wasn’t a homeless person, but a ghost. AND now he’s dead-set on doing some ghost hunting. So he enlists the help of Ben, his reluctant coworker, to go down into the basement that night and help him set some ghost traps.



The Basement is a 29 minute long American short from 2008 directed by Jeremy Lunt. Not to be confused with another short from 2008, also titled The Basement from director Chuck Reina, or the feature length movie The Basement from 2013, OR yet another feature length film titled The Basement from 2017.

Whew. That’s a lot of basements. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, with such an uninspiring name amongst them, none of the films are rated all that highly either. Go figure. And…um…. You know, I usually try to add a little background info right around here so you can maybe know what you’re getting into. But I honestly can’t find out all that much about this movie, beyond that it was shot on location in Portland, Maine (and that was in the credits, so it’s not like I had to try hard for that little tidbit). The film appears to be a passion project made with a handful of unknown local actors. And I say “appears” because with only one exception, it doesn’t look like any of them have worked on anything else. Even the director’s IMDB bio is so uneventful that it has to scrimp for highlights such as, at the age of ten, Lunt received “an A+ on a school project devoted to the science behind motion picture special effects.” Um, okay, good for you, dude. But…uh…. I think with riveting information like that, it’s safe to say that you shouldn’t expect too much from this film.


I’m also pretty sure Lunt wrote it too, even though it’s not listed anywhere.

The acting is…well, it’s okay, but it’s not great. The only actor who doesn’t have this single film to their name is Sax Carr, the guy who plays Ben. But he also primarily seems to be a writer and producer of various TV shows. Which, judging by this movie, he should probably stick to, since his acting prowess wasn’t all that great. Though it did lead to a couple of funny moments. Like when he flubbed his line when he was addressing his coworker, suggesting that he had temporarily forgotten who the hell he was speaking to.



The writing? Also not great. Granted, some of the issues, like the stilted delivery, are the fault of the actors who I suspect were only there because they were doing Lunt a favor. But even some of the main plot points of the story are very puzzling. At one point Ben discovers a room covered in blood, with a bloody chair sitting in the center of it. But when he shows it to Jeff, everything is gone and cleaned up, except for some tell-tale spots of blood on the wall that Jeff confirms are blood. And this incident is apparently what inspires Jeff to believe that ghosts are roaming about (guess that means he has no faith in the hotel’s janitorial staff).

But the question is, if Jeff, who is a security guard, did indeed think they found a room with blood covering the walls (and possibly other surfaces), why then does this discovery seem to immediately make him think that ghosts are afoot, as opposed to, say, oh, I don’t know… calling the police because YOU THINK YOU FOUND BLOOD ON THE WALLS?! I mean, come on. WTF? And how is putting tape on the doors the next night supposed to help you catch ghosts? Is that a thing people do? How would that even work? Aren’t ghosts supposed to be able to walk through walls? So how would putting tape on the doors even….? You know what, I don’t know. I’m just terribly confused.


Also, Ben has apparently never used tape before in his entire life.

And the pacing? Ugh. For a movie that’s only 29 minutes long, there’s so little that actually happens during it that it almost feels like it goes on for twice that long. I think around 80% of the movie just involves watching either Jeff or Ben going from room to room while they wander around a dingy basement (that is surprisingly well-lit), and occasionally speaking into their walkie-talkies. Which I think is a shame, because believe it or not, there’s actually a decent nugget of a story buried in all this aimless meandering through rooms that don’t seem to serve any purpose (why does the hotel need a room with a boat in their basement?). But because there’s no apparent background or build up to the film’s conclusion we’re forced to sit through a lot of… Well, nothing, unfortunately.


Well, nothing and butt shots, apparently. There’s a suspicious amount of butt shots.

But all is not in vain! The one thing the movie does get right, is its location. I’m not sure where they are, but wherever it is it does at least appear to be somewhere with a creepy, dingy, and kinda run-down looking basement. It’s dark, there’s random crap in most of the rooms, and there are mystery stains on just about every visible surface. So the location IS effectively creepy, and I don’t blame Ben for not wanting to be down there. Although it couldn’t have been too run-down, because it looks like there was a leak in one of the hallways and someone was nice enough to put up one of those bright yellow “Caution: Wet Floor” signs in front of the puddle. Maybe the ghost was being nice and didn’t want anyone to slip.


It’s nice to see they were following proper safety procedures.

Overall though, The Basement isn’t all that memorable, I’m sorry to say. No, not even with a room covered with blood stained walls and sporting a bloody chair. There’s just too much downtime and too little going on that it ends up falling kinda flat, even though I did like the general idea they were going for. And just in case you’re wondering, yes, you do actually see a ghost at the end. But because you’re given zero info or background about said ghost, including any semblance of motivation, I can pretty much guarantee that you won’t care. But it is there. Ya know. If you’re curious about such things. Not that you should be though, because other than the good location, the movie is rather ‘meh’.

The Basement is available on a variety of streaming services.

The Basement does not appear to have had any type of physical release.

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