The Man in My Basement just flipped the haunted house trope on its head—and Twitter is already trying to decode what Willem Dafoe really wants down there.
In the newly dropped teaser for Hulu's upcoming 2025 horror film, The Man in My Basement, Dafoe plays a “peculiar white businessman” with a vague European accent and a not-so-vague sense of dread. He offers to rent the basement of a struggling Black homeowner—played by Corey Hawkins—and that's where the genre lines start to blur like a bad dream.
Not Just a Trailer—It's a Warning Label
Mark your calendars: this isn't just hype—it's a countdown. The Man in My Basement hits Hulu in Fall 2025, dropping squarely into award season's prestige-horror lane. Directed by Nadia Latif in her feature debut and adapted from Walter Mosley's 2004 novel, it's already shaping up as a conversation-starter in the same league as Get Out or His House.
Also, the tea? The film originally starred Jonathan Majors—until he was recast following his assault conviction. Enter Dafoe. A wild replacement choice? Absolutely. A better one? Possibly. Dafoe's face has always been a haunted house—here, it's the whole damn neighborhood.
Horror Meets Heritage: What's Actually Going On Here?
Let's talk power dynamics. Hawkins plays Charles Blakey, a Black man at risk of losing his family's home in the historically Black enclave of Sag Harbor. Enter Dafoe's Anniston Bennet, who wants to “rent” his basement for the summer—offering a payout too big to refuse.
It's not just a creepy setup—it's a loaded metaphor. The teaser hints at deeper rot: race, history, trauma, and what it means to let evil in (literally and metaphorically). There's something parasitic about Bennet's proposition. And there's something all-too-American about how it plays out.
Think: Jordan Peele meets Shirley Jackson meets a foreclosure notice.
In a horror landscape cluttered with ghost girls and cursed TikToks, The Man in My Basement stands out by saying the quiet part loud: Sometimes the scariest thing isn't what's in the basement—it's who wants in.
What Makes This Different?
📌 Insane detail: Dafoe reportedly plays Bennet with an accent that's “deliberately unplaceable,” according to early production notes—meant to make him feel like a spectral colonial force.
📌 Savage comparison: If Get Out was America's racial wake-up call, The Man in My Basement feels like its haunted afterparty. There are no auctions this time—just a slow, existential erasure.
📌 Historical context: Hollywood has flirted with racial horror before (Candyman, His House, even Antebellum)—but rarely with the subtle, insidious energy of domestic invasion. Bennet isn't overtly violent. He's… civil. And that civility is the weapon.
A Basement Full of Baggage
The trailer doesn't give much away—just shadows, cryptic whispers (“Tell no one of our arrangement…”), and one chilling image of Dafoe calmly sipping wine beneath exposed pipes. But the subtext is loud: power. Ownership. Debt. Control.
The fact that this story originated in 2004 but feels even more relevant today? That's not coincidence. That's a mirror.
Would You Let Him In?
Is this a high-concept horror masterpiece in the making—or prestige creepypasta? Either way, we're watching. Closely.
