Charles Blakey has lived in a haunted house all his life. In the family for eight generations, the sprawling abode in chilly Sag Harbor is the Blakey crown jewel: beautiful, big, and all theirs. And, unquestionably, bad things have happened there, an idea that first-time feature filmmaker Nadia Latif stretches (and streeetcchhhhesss) to wild ends in “The Man in My Basement,” her ambitious if scattershot adaptation of the Walter Mosley novel.
While clarity isn’t always required for a project as thorny as this one, cohesion is. That will run in short supply, and soon.
We know the house has gotten into Charles’ (Corey Hawkins) blood and, when the film opens, it’s pretty much all has has left. He’s got no money, no job, no family, and barely any friends — details that Latif delivers with style, smarts, and plenty of tension in the film’s elegant first act. Charles’ isolation appears to be not only self-imposed, but also part of a bigger (and, frankly, quite bold) swing when it comes to character-building: He’s not just someone who’s haunted or has made mistakes. He’s a bad person.
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When he goes to see his cousin at the local bank, she won’t even let him in the building. She opts to have a tough conversation outside, one that includes her fierce declaration that Charles “got what he asked for.” Later, when he calls his Aunt Peaches to ask for cash, her rush of breath and the “…oh” she exhales when she realizes who is on the other end of the line tell us everything we need to know. He needles his friends. He pushes people away, shoves them by force. He doesn’t have much to contribute to the world, and he’s certainly not trying to change that.
What he does have, however, is a basement. A big one.
Set in 1994 and kitted out with plenty of period-appropriate details, the film’s setting allows for all sorts of mystery (and one, quite funny, rudimentary internet search). When the smiling Anniston Bennet (Willem Dafoe) arrives on Charles’ doorstep one day, asking if he might rent out his “stand-up basement” for a couple of months, we already know that he really needs the cash. But does Anniston? And, really, what does he know? How does he know it? Why does he know it?
These questions — and more, so very many more — pile up over the course of the film’s running time (nearly 115 minutes, and you’ll feel every one). While Charles initially balks at Anniston’s offer (perhaps the only time the audience will be with him when it comes to his choices and reactions), it sticks with him. When he starts clearing out that basement — either to make space for Bennet or to find stuff to sell, it’s never quite explained — we know what’s coming next. After all, it’s in the film’s title.
When Anniston eventually offers Charles $65,000 for two months (!) in said basement, you almost can’t blame him for going for it. Even the creaky visions that start to plague him, the terrifying nightmares (jump scares ahoy, and so many of them cheap) can’t dissuade Charles from taking up Anniston on the offer. Sure, stranger, come live in my basement for two months and for a thousand bucks a day, why not? This might be the last time we understand anything Charles does.
When Anniston moves in, Latif and cinematographer Ula Pontikos make those early interactions really count. Charles gets boxed in by the camera, which gazes up at Anniston with near reverence. A split diopter shot is almost all for show, but that doesn’t detract from its skill. Alas, despite its intriguing and well-mounted first act, things bottom out and fast.
Consider the introduction of Narciss Gully (Anna Diop), who arrives early to check out Charles’ many intriguing family artifacts. Narciss, a curator and historian who doesn’t just know her stuff when it comes to African history, but truly values it, initially balks at Charles, who mostly seems driven to sell this “junk” for profit. But when Charles (maybe) has a change of heart, he turns jittery, stuttering, and odd — and then shows up at Narciss’ quilt shop to pitch her on an idea that should dispel any notions of what kind of person he is. And yet, she doesn’t fully turn away from him. Why?
Perhaps that’s the key to what unfolds elsewhere. When Anniston reveals part of his grand plan to Charles, he doesn’t fully turn away from him, either. But why? While Mosley’s book was much more concerned with the overtly racial elements of the men’s bargain — with Charles’ complex family history, including fascinating details about how Blakeys were never enslaved, playing a much larger part — Latif’s version piles on all sorts of other elements, muddling the power of Mosley’s original story.
That Anniston’s offer is tainted is a given; that Charles is making a deal with a very bad man is obvious. However, the devil isn’t just on the screen, it’s in the details, and Latif’s film can’t pull those together.
Grade: C+
“The Man in My Basement” premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. Andscape will release it in theaters on Friday, September 12, with a streaming release on Hulu to follow.
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