At BiffBamPop, the Gutter’s own Sachin Hingoo reports on his second day at the Toronto International Film Festival 2025! “I decided to start off Day Two with another lighthearted comedy; Nadia Latif’s The Man in My Basement. Just kidding, this is a weighty, emotional horror anchored by two (literal?) killer performances by Corey Hawkins and the always-great Willem Dafoe. As much as you might have expectations of a horror film that centres around the relationship between captor and captive, this one subverts pretty much all of them while taking the power struggle between Hawkins’ Charles Blakey and Dafoe’s Anniston Bennett to some very dark places. Charles is plagued by these waking nightmares while his money troubles seem to be forcing him into the difficult choice of selling off vital pieces of his family history, leading him to rent to the mysterious and sinister Bennett. You’re never going to go wrong with Dafoe’s monologuing, and he is in expert form here.”

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