No one ever handles life’s extremes the same way. For our protagonist, Claude, he’s not handling the death of his wife in the most healthy of ways. He’s short with his clients at work and not the nicest guy to his co-workers. Even meeting women socially is an awkward situation. Oh, and Claude has his wife’s murderer locked away in his basement.
Desperate times call for desperate measures in Dustin Cook’s I Hate the Man in My Basement. You have to admit the basic plot of the film is pretty interesting. Claude (Chris Marquette) is a sympathetic character—murdered wife, grieving soul. How can we not blame him for imprisoning his wife’s killer, Logan (Manny Montana), for who knows how long? So, how will this play out?
“…murdered wife, grieving soul. How can we not blame him for imprisoning his wife’s killer…”
In the real world, Claude does his best to live a normal life and hide his secret all at the same time. Fortunately, Claude has a good friend in crazy co-worker Riley (Jeffrey Doornbos), who convinces Claude to go on a double-date salsa dance class. But instead of falling for his date, Claude is attracted to the dance instructor Kyra (Nora-Jane Noone). But being intimate with anyone, so soon after his wife’s death is both problematic and understandable.
Meanwhile, what about the guy in the basement? In a way, by kidnapping Logan, Claude has opened Pandora’s box. He can’t un-kidnap Logan, nor can he kill him. Or can he? As tough decisions tend to do, we prefer to avoid making them. Now in the meantime, Claude has to keep Logan alive, keep him captive and hidden. It all makes having a social life very difficult. I should also add that the cops are looking for the missing killer as well.
"…I especially like how the double life that Claude lives eventually intersects..."
