In the BasementMovies like In the Basement
- Key Features:
- Documentary, Fetish, Human nature, Subculture, Taboo, Social commentary, Psychological exploration, Controversial, Nudity-moderate, Violence-mild
- Tone:
- serious, restrained, cynical
- Target Audience:
- Documentary viewers, Those interested in social commentary, Viewers who explore the human psyche, Fans of controversial films
- Emotional Arc:
- Intrigue → Discomfort → Disquiet
In the Basement

Filmmaker Ulrich Seidl explores of the dark underside of the human psyche by entering Austrian basements fitted out as private domains for secrets and fetishes.
In the Basement
A Parisian couple decides to sell an unsanitary basement in their building. A very ordinary, nondescript man, Mr. Fonzic, shows up to buy it. Nothing unusual there, until the man moves into the cellar and makes it his permanent residence. The couple tries desperately to cancel the sale but to no avail. Worse, Mr. Fonzic becomes a threat to their family as he befriends their teenage daughter on whom he seems to exert a perverted influence.

A seemingly innocent man is abducted by a notorious L.A. serial killer, who forces his victims to switch roles with him so that he can enact his own capture, torture and murder.

Upon learning that his days are numbered, a man and an old friend return to an old house that connects them by a dark secret. Along with three women and a mysterious old man, the group journeys into a horrifying abyss of debauchery and moral mayhem, leading to a fatal turn of events, during which the darkest human depths are revealed.

A sixteen-year-old boy insinuates himself into the house of a fellow student from his literature class and writes about it in essays for his French teacher. Faced with this gifted and unusual pupil, the teacher rediscovers his enthusiasm for his work, but the boy’s intrusion will unleash a series of uncontrollable events.

A man who runs an apartment house for women is the demented son of a Nazi surgeon who has the house equipped with secret passageways, hidden rooms and torture and murder devices.

Paul and Jennifer Hemdale have just moved into their dream house. But their happy marriage is about to be put to the test as they slowly discover the secret behind the black room in the cellar. Something else is already living in their new home and it is growing stronger every day.

On the beaches of Kenya they’re known as "Sugar Mamas" —European women who seek out African boys selling love to earn a living. Teresa, a 50-year-old Austrian and mother of a daughter entering puberty, travels to this vacation paradise, moving from beach to beach.

A mysterious teenager named Ángelo cares for Klaus, a German doctor with a dark past who lives trapped in an iron lung.

Day in and day out, lovers Cynthia and Evelyn enact an elaborate sadomasochistic fantasy as mistress and maid. But as their ritual of domination and submission begins to turn stale, Cynthia yearns for something more conventional, while Evelyn tries to push their taboos even further.

In 1750 Austria, a deeply religious woman named Agnes has just married her beloved, but her mind and heart soon grow heavy as her life becomes a long list of chores and expectations. Day after day, she is increasingly trapped in a murky and lonely path leading to evil thoughts, until the possibility of committing a shocking act of violence seems like the only way out of her inner prison.

Six outwardly average individuals have elaborate fetishes they indulge with surreptitious care. A mousy letter carrier makes dough balls she grotesquely ingests before bed. A shop clerk fixates on a TV news reader while he builds a machine to massage and masturbate him. One of his customers makes an elaborate chicken costume for a voodoo-like scene with a doll resembling his plump neighbor. She, in turn, has a doll that resembles him, which she whips and dominates in an abandoned church. The TV news reader has her own fantasy involving carp. Her husband, who is indifferent to her, steals materials to fashion elaborate artifacts that he rubs, scrapes and rolls across his body.

Trapped inside a fortified home owned by a mysterious couple, a young boy quickly learns the true nature of the homicidal inhabitants, and secret creatures hidden deep within the walls.

Massimo Sisti is a reputable professional with a nice house, a happy marriage, and two loving daughters, whose life is turned upside down when one day he finds a little girl tied up in his basement.

A woman employs a gay man to spend four nights at her house to watch her when she's "unwatchable".

Although to the outside world he seems like the a perfectly normal insurance broker, Michael secretly keeps a 10-year-old boy, Wolfgang locked in a room in his soundproof basement.

An Italian high school student becomes infatuated with a woman he sees outside his class window. Her fiancée is in jail for being involved in a radical movement, and she spends much time in court providing moral support. At first she resists the student's advances, but eventually begins an affair with him. Their situation is condemned by her family and his father, who is the woman's psychologist.

In a decript apartment, a young man watches as his father and a friend shoot an amateur porn film. Issues of morality, reality TV and friendship are explored.

An enigmatic actress may have a hidden agenda when she auditions for a part in a misogynistic writer's play.

Sara is a teen girl who is looking forward to her 18th birthday to move away from her controlling father Don. But before she could even blow out the candles, Don imprisons her in the basement of their home.

Erika Kohut, a sexually repressed piano teacher living with her domineering mother, meets a young man who starts romantically pursuing her.

In the heat of the summer lays a lonesome house in the countryside where nine year old twin brothers await their mother’s return. When she comes home, bandaged after cosmetic surgery, nothing is like before and the children start to doubt whether this woman is actually who she says she is.

Interviews with family members, doctors, and victims of 73-year-old Josef Fritzl, who held his daughter captive in a basement for 24 years and fathered seven children with her.

A killer is released from prison and breaks into a remote home to kill a woman, her handicapped son and her pretty daughter.

When a group of naive teens working at a movie theater in a small Christian town discover a mysterious film hidden in its basement, they unleash an alluring succubus who gives them a sex education…written in blood.

This documentary explores the hidden history of the American Exploitation Film. The movie digs deep into this often overlooked category of U.S. cinema and unearths the shameless and occasionally shocking origins of this popular entertainment.

Gallery director Stanislas bolsters the development of modern art with his collection of surprising works. His newest acquisition is a sculpture by Gilbert, whose wife Josée is captivated by Stanislas. But unbeknownst to her, Stanislas is amassing photographs of a very perverse, disturbed nature.

A young woman left her family for an unspecified reason. The husband determines to find out the truth and starts following his wife. At first, he suspects that a man is involved. But gradually, he finds out more and more strange behaviors and bizarre incidents that indicate something more than a possessed love affair.

Scarred for life after a harrowing near-death experience, emotionally fragile mother-to-be Sarah is still struggling to come to terms with her loss. Overcome with silent grief, Sarah now seeks solace in work; however, she is on a collision course with sheer terror when a knock at the door in the dead of night chills her bones to the marrow. Now, the raven-haired, late-night visitor in black wants something precious from Sarah, and will stop at nothing to get it.

A passionate telling of the story of Sada Abe, a woman whose affair with her master led to an obsessive and ultimately destructive sexual relationship.

After years of separation, Irena Gallier and her minister brother, Paul, reunite in New Orleans. When zoologists capture a wild panther, Irena is drawn to the cat – and zoo curator Oliver to her. Soon, Paul will have to reveal the family secret: that when sexually aroused, they revert into predatory jungle cats.

Monika lives with Rob, a corpse she loves. Her dilemma intensifies when she meets Mark and considers a normal life with him. She must choose between her affection for Rob and a new relationship.

A young psychiatric nurse goes to work at a lonesome asylum following a murder. There, she experiences varying degrees of torment from the patients.

A student moves in with a family that lives in an underground house in the middle of the forest, far from civilization. His hopes of peace and quiet are soon shattered, when it becomes apparent that both the parents and their son have a screw loose.

Horror anthology consisting of three episodes directed by Jörg Buttgereit, Andreas Marschall and Michal Kosakowski.

A group of Serbian socialists prepares for the war in a surreal underground filled by parties, tragedies, love and hate.

Marie, who works as a successful door-to-door encyclopedia salesperson, has been married to her husband Francois for 12 years and has a two-year-old son. Though she is relatively content with her life, she feels something is wanting. Enter 50-year old African-American Bill. Initially she is annoyed by his insouciance, but she finds that she is irresistibly attracted to him. Soon the two are in the midst of sordid illicit affair. She knows little about her new lover, and he seems uninterested in learning about her, but the long sessions of lovemaking are something else entirely. Feeling out of control, Marie is increasingly repelled by her own actions. Psychologically, she struggles to reconcile her torrid encounters with Bill and mundane domestic chores such as bathing her son. Moreover, she finds herself incapable of hiding her adulterous behavior, rather she comes home with scratches and hickeys all over her body, to the devastation Francois.

Beautiful young housewife Séverine Serizy cannot reconcile her masochistic fantasies with her everyday life alongside dutiful husband Pierre. When her lovestruck friend Henri mentions a secretive high-class brothel run by Madame Anais, Séverine begins to work there during the day under the name Belle de Jour. But when one of her clients grows possessive, she must try to go back to her normal life.

Three generations of a French family open up about their sexual experiences and desires after young Romain is caught masturbating in his biology class.

The film tells different stories in a kind of parallel Germany about love, affection and hatred.

Set against the backdrop of an increasingly violent strike, a worker falls in love with the middle-class daughter of his landlady.

A mother and her young son release unimaginable horrors from the attic of their rural dream home.

Frustrated by the lack of intimacy in her relationship, a young schoolteacher goes through a series of intimidating and often violent sexual partners.

After breaking into a house he believes is empty, thief Olivier is caught by the owner, Ariane, who turns out to be a dominatrix. Improbably falling for her, Olivier returns periodically, and an impulsive romance blossoms despite Ariane's profession. Soon Olivier becomes more familiar with her work, even joining in on occasion. However, when he discovers that Ariane has a son, he attempts to "fix" her, hoping to give her a better life.

Retired porn star Milos leads a normal family life trying to make ends meet. Presented with the opportunity of a lifetime to financially support his family for the rest of their lives, Milos must participate in one last mysterious film. From then on, Milos is drawn into a maelstrom of unbelievable cruelty and mayhem.

A posthumous look at the last days of Guenther's life as he, his best friend, and his sister let loose on a four-day binge of alcohol, drugs, and sex.

Alain and Marie moved to the suburb house of their dreams. But the real estate agent warned them: what is in the basement may well change their lives forever.

What does the energy harnessed through orgasm have to do with the state of communist Yugoslavia circa 1971? Only counterculture filmmaker extraordinaire Dušan Makavejev has the answers (or the questions). His surreal documentary-fiction collision begins as an investigation into the life and work of controversial psychologist and philosopher Wilhelm Reich and then explodes into a free-form narrative of a beautiful young Slavic girl’s sexual liberation.

A domestic house cat named Francis investigates the grisly feline murders taking place in his new neighborhood.

A journey into the labyrinthine heart of ideology, which shapes and justifies both collective and personal beliefs and practices: with an infectious zeal and voracious appetite for popular culture, Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek analyzes several of the most important films in the history of cinema to explain how cinematic narrative helps to reinforce prevailing ethics and political ideas.

A husband and wife lie to each other about their weekend travel plans, only to both show up at the family's country house with their lovers.

Set during the fading glory of the Austro-Hungarian empire, the film tells of the rise and fall of Alfred Redl, an ambitious young officer who proceeds up the ladder to become head of the Secret Police only to become ensnared in political deception.

A man descends into paranoia after trapping what he believes to be the devil in his basement, but things take a dark turn when his family unexpectedly arrive for Christmas.

Seven episodes, each taking place on a different day of the week, on the theme of suicide and violent death.

Two young women find themselves struggling to survive in Paris, street-wise Nathalie, a stripper, and naïve Sandrine, a barmaid. Together, they discover that sex can be used to their advantage, and pleasure.

Want to know what a successful day in the life of the little asshole looks like? Yes? Well, after you have successfully disturbed your parents' lovemaking, you concentrate on your own libido. This, slightly disturbed, forces you to strain the weak heart of pensioner Mrs. Koschmidder with unambiguous offers.

Ana is confronted with body and desire at three key moments of her life. As a young girl, she brings her dead grandpa back to life. In her puberty, she discovers the power of decay and sexuality. Finally, she wrestles with loss and loneliness when she returns to her parental home, now derelict.

Christian, a reclusive young man from Leipzig, gets a job working the night shift at a big-box store. He's trained to stocks goods and operate a forklift by Bruno, a wistful former truck driver, who introduces Christian to a colorful group of overnight workers, including Marion, with whom Christian develops a troubled infatuation.

Mrs. Van Houten has shown signs of losing touch with reality, and her husband discusses possible treatment with Dr. Caligari, who says Mrs. Van Houten has a disease of the libido.

London, England. Mike, a fifteen-year-old boy, gets a job in a bathhouse, where he meets Susan, an attractive young woman who works there as an attendant.

A necrophilic street sweeper who cleans up after grisly accidents brings home a corpse for him and his girlfriend to enjoy sexually, but is dismayed to see that she prefers the corpse over him.

A Spanish orchestra conductor deals with the mysterious disappearance of his girlfriend.

A hilarious introduction, using as examples some of the best films ever made, to some of Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek's most exciting ideas on personal subjectivity, fantasy and reality, desire and sexuality.

Five years after an unexplained malfunction causes the death of 15 tour-goers and staff on the opening night of a Halloween haunted house tour, a documentary crew travels back to the scene of the tragedy to find out what really happened.

Kitty runs a brothel in Nazi Germany where the soldiers come to "relax". Recording devices have been installed in each room by a power hungry army official who plans to use the information to blackmail Hitler and gain power himself. A girl named Margherita discovers the little ploy and with Kitty's help plans to take on the dangerous task of exposing the conspiracy.

1975, Swiss Alps: In a remote mountain village, a beautiful and mysterious woman shows up. Only the village policeman takes care of the strange woman and tries to find out who she is. There are hints that she came from the Höhenalp Alp, where herdsmen do unthinkable things to get the company of women. Many dark truths are revealed that should better have remained hidden. A tragedy of lust, insanity and murder is brought to a seemlingly pure and perfect world. It is the beginning of a nightmare of religious insanity, hypocrisy, abuse and belief in demons, who destroys a young family and brings a whole village to destruction.

9to5 - Days in Porn focuses on the people behind a controversial and multi-billion dollar industry "The Adult Entertainment industry". It depicts their stories, each one different, unadorned and authentic, without glorification or prejudice. It delivers deep insight into their personal lives - from glamorous to grotesque - strange, fascinating, offensive, absurd and sometimes funny moments all at once.

After witnessing a brutal murder in a cabin, a man hides in a crawlspace while the killers scour the property for a hidden fortune. As they draw nearer, he must decide if the crawlspace will be his tomb or the battleground in his fight for survival.

When awkward teen Ronald Wilby accidentally kills a young girl whose sister rejected his affections, his overbearing mother decides to hide him from the law by creating a concealed room in their home for him to live.

Elvira Weishaupt, once a burly working-class butcher, has made an enormous sacrifice for love. She has undergone a sex change for a romantic interest who has abandoned her, and she now must struggle to reconcile her past life with her present identity.

A concentration camp survivor discovers her former torturer and lover working as a porter at a hotel in postwar Vienna. When the couple attempt to re-create their sadomasochistic relationship, his former SS comrades begin to stalk them.

A group of drug-influenced lumpen teenagers from the suburbs of the city descends into the center where they do not belong, where they are excluded. They adopted a brutal method to seize rights that were not granted to them. Unaware of what will happen to them, cheerful and well-to-do university students are helpless in the face of this gun-wielding mob that suddenly raids the bar where they are having fun.

When her mother is killed in a mysterious house fire, rebellious teen Debbie Strand is sent to live with her grandmother, where she becomes even more unhinged. She develops an intense crush on her hunky creative writing teacher, Peter Rinaldi, but her numerous attempts at seduction end in failure. Soon Peter's friends start turning up dead, and he fears that his fiancée, Marilyn, may be Debbie's next victim.

A wealthy teen and his friends attending an elite private school uncover a dark conspiracy while looking into a series of strange supernatural events.

An all-knowing interlocutor guides us through a series of affairs in Vienna, 1900. A soldier meets an eager young lady of the evening. Later he has an affair with a young lady, who becomes a maid and does similarly with the young man of the house. The young man seduces a married woman. On and on, spinning on the gay carousel of life.

Survivors of a nuclear attack are grouped together for days in the basement of their apartment building, where fear and dwindling supplies wear away at their dynamic.

Four volunteers sign up for what initially appears to be a typical paid research study, only to discover that they've unwittingly become involved with a classified government program that was said to have been terminated nearly two decades ago.

Across different eras, a poor family, an anxious developer and a fed-up landlady become tied to the same mysterious house in this animated dark comedy.

In the last days of WW2, women are volunteering from all over Germany to serve in the front lines by having sex with the brave Nazi soldiers. But when they start having sex with each other, things get complicated. Especially with the increasing danger from the revengeful Soviet army!

A young woman in Paris goes to a party in the enormous labyrinth of limestone tunnels beneath Paris. When she becomes separated from her friends, she is convinced something is chasing her through the dark tunnels.

St. Petersburg, early 20th century. The handsome and secretive Johann specializes in shooting erotic pictures depicting the floggings of bare-bottomed women. With the help of his assistants, the photographic creations gradually penetrate the peaceful households of two upper-class Russian families.

A disturbed young embalmer digs the grave of his recently deceased girlfriend and brings her body to his family villa with help from his strange housekeeper. But his bouts of insanity are just beginning.

A deep dive into the hidden industry of digital cleaning, which rids the Internet of unwanted violence, porn and political content.

A young woman studying the habits of webcam chat users from the apparent safety of her apartment witnesses a brutal murder online and is quickly immersed in a nightmare in which she and her loved ones are targeted for the same grisly fate as the first victim.

This sequel to Flowers in the Attic picks up 10 years after Cathy, Chris and Carrie managed to escape Foxworth Hall.

A musician finds the corpse of a beautiful woman on the beach. The woman returns from the dead to take revenge on the group of wealthy sadists responsible for her death.

A man who suspects his wife is cheating on him begins having nightmarish visions of an evil presence that he believes inhabits his house.

In 1984, a Russian research team goes below the surface to find out what secret the world's deepest borehole is hiding. On their expedition, something unexpectedly gruesome awaits the researchers.

Chronicles three years of a middle-class family seemingly caught up in their daily routines, troubled only by minor incidents. Behind their apparent calm and repetitive existence, however, they're planning something much more sinister.

Imagine walking down the street and finding an unmarked VHS tape. Curiosity piqued, you take it home and pop it in. What starts off as two men screwing around with a video camera quickly transforms into an ultra-realistic torture sequence where the unidentified psychopaths tape their exploits as they torment and violate a woman tied to a chair. The devastation of your morals continues throughout the entirety of the footage, while subtly revealing the killer's shattered pasts via the interaction with their victims and each other. The most shockingly realistic portrait of a serial killer's existence is, Fred Vogel's AUGUST UNDERGROUND.

When a team of explorers ventures into the uncharted maze of bones that lies beneath the streets of Paris, they embark on a journey into madness and terror.

The disturbed arts teacher, Anna Veigh, is hired by Mr. Laing as a governess to raise Flora and her brother Miles. Anna believes that the ghosts of the former governess, Miss Jessel, and housekeeper, Peter Quint, are in the property haunting the children, and she decides to help them to face the spirits and get their souls free.

Vice Lieutenant Eismayer is the most feared trainer and model macho in the Austrian Military and lives as a gay man in secret. When he falls in love with a young, openly gay soldier, his world gets turned upside down.

1956, in the north of France. A group of underground miners is forced to take a professor to take samples a thousand meters underground. After a landslide that prevents them from going back up, they discover a crypt from another time, and unknowingly awaken a legendary bloodthirsty creature.

Marc Schrader, a rookie cop caught red-handed with drugs in a police raid of an illegal rave, joins a homicide investigation conducted by Chief Inspector Minks. The victim is a naked young woman with the skin stripped off her back, killed as she staggered into traffic. As Schrader and Minks investigate the murder, the case is complicated by a finger found in the stomach of the victim. Forensic examination proves the finger belongs to Nobert Günzel, who was previously convicted of rape and assault. The police raid Günzel’s residence, and discover a blood-stained table with restraints and bits of human flesh in his basement. They also find video equipment and preserved, tattooed skin from the victim’s back. Soon, they found dead bodies buried in the garden. Günzel then goes missing.

When a mysterious brick wall encloses their apartment building overnight, Tim and Olivia must unite with their wary neighbors to get out alive.

An introverted teenager tells his parents he is going on a ski trip, but instead spends his time alone in his mom's basement. But things didn't go as planned after his half sister joins him.

Called to court on obscenity charges, a theatre troupe are forced to expose their neuroses and inner psychological torments.

A filmmaker holds a series of boundary-pushing auditions for his latest project: a thriller on the subject of female pleasure.

