From Horror Movie To Horror Comic: Don’t Look In The Basement (1973)

Posted on April 22, 2026 by bloodlinematt

Welcome back to another “From Horror Movie To Horror Comic” update here at Rotten Ink. This time around we will be heading to the Stephen’s Sanitarium a metal asylum where the patients are wandering the halls and one poor nurse finds herself in the middle of this madness and chaos when all she wanted to do is help! The film we will of course be talking about is the cult movie called Don’t Look In The Basement that was released in 1973 and has scared moviegoers ever sense. We will also be taking a look at the Blood Scream Comics adaptation of the film, and I will not be giving the comic any kind of star ratings as I am connected to Blood Scream and that just seems very silly. But if you are ready, let’s head to the asylum and for gosh sakes lets stay away from the basement.

Let’s start by looking at Dr. Geraldine S. Masters, a crazed woman who deals pain and death to those who cross her path or go against her words. Dr. Masters is a mental patient who, after an accident leaves the real Doctor dead, takes over running the asylum and does so with an iron fist as she does not like it when people disobey her orders. Geraldine Masters is a patient at the Stephen’s Sanitarium who thinks she is a Doctor and has been allowed by the staff to act like one with her fellow inmates, she is schizophrenic and made a mistake when studying to be a nurse that lead her into this madness. Dr. Masters will uses her hold and threats over her fellow inmates in order to keep them in line and to play along with her delusions. Those who do cross her path end up being tortured by being burnt, having their tongues removed and being drugged in order to not speak the truths about her. She has a way to make those who do not know about her believe what she says and truly think she is a doctor who cares about her patients. She is a liar that uses her words to manipulate those around her and can get them to do things she orders as well as think a certain way about a person. If Dr. Masters is crossed or disobeyed to the extreme she will attempt to kill you with a sharp object or will try and have one of her fellow inmates do so for her. But because Dr. Geraldine S. Masters is crazy and human she can be killed like any normal person so stabbing, cutting, bashing, shot, drowned and all other ways of people dying will end her ways of terror. Also her madness and her ego can lead her down a path of death as she pushes her fellow inmates to hard and this will cause them to fight back with deadly results as is her fate in the film. While she is not the most dangerous killer we have ever covered here on a From Horror Movie To Horror Comic update, she is still very deadly and has the tools and authority to end lives.

Now that we have talked about Doctor Masters and her ways of dealing death and fright I think that it is time that we take a look at the film she appeared in Don’t Look In The Basement. Now I would like to remind you that I will be taking the film’s plot from our pals at IMDB and after that I will write about the film’s production as well as my thoughts on the film. So if you are ready, let’s wonder around the Sanitarium and see what dangers await us all.

Don’t Look In The Basement (1973)

“Nurse Charlotte Beale arrives at the isolated Stephens Sanitarium to work, only to learn that Dr. Stephens was murdered by one of the patients and his successor, Dr. Geraldine Masters, is not very eager to take on new staff. Charlotte finds her job maddeningly hard as the patients torment and harass her at every turn, and she soon learns why Dr. Masters is so eager to keep outsiders out.”

Don’t Look In The Basement is a 1973 Horror Film that is known by several other titles like “The Forgotten” and “Death Ward # 13” that was the brain child of director S.F. Brownrigg who also produced the film with Tim Pope writing the screenplay. The film was made to cash in on the big horror boom of the early 1970’s as theaters and drive-in moviegoers seemed to not be able to get enough of them. The film was about a secluded mental asylum that was run by a Doctor who ends up being murdered as well as his head nurse and the inmates take over the asylum and this is bad news for a young nurse who arrives later that night after the killings. The film would cast Playboy Playmate Rosie Holotik as the young nurse with such actors as Bill McGhee, Annabelle Weenick, Jesie Lee Fulton, Harryette Warren, Betty Chandler and Gene Ross making up some of the cast. The films budget was around $100 thousand dollars and was your typical indie film production for the time, and once the film was done Robert Farrar would do the score and American International Pictures would distribute it. The film when released in theaters was meet with mix reviews from critics, but moviegoers seemed to enjoy this downbeat film and over the years thanks to home media the film has built a very strong cult following. The director of the film S.F. Brownrigg would continue to make horror films and would follow this film with such titles as Poor White Trash Part II, Don’t Open The Door! and Keep My Grave Open all that have gotten a following over the decades. Sadly Brownrigg would pass away in 1996 at the age of only 58, as who knows what other delights he could have made for Horror fans. The film did get a sequel in 2015 and was directed by Anthony Brownrigg, the son of S.F. and over the years many remakes have been spoken about but never filmed. When released in 1973 it was joined by such other fight flicks as The Exorcist, Theater Of Blood, Return Of The Blind Dead, The Crazies, Satanic Rites Of Dracula, Scream Blacula Scream, Blood Orgy Of The She-Devils, Godmonster Of Indian Flats and Wicker Man to name a few.

The first time I seen Don’t Look In The Basement was via a old VHS tape my brother found at the store Suncoast that was located in one of our area’s local indoor malls. We both had always heard about the film thanks to the books like The Gore Score and Splatter Movie Guide plus of course old issues of Fangoria Magazine had featured it. And after seeing this film I was a fan as I feel that it was very creepy and spooky and the atmosphere and story did a good job of bringing a very uneasy watch as each of the patients in the asylum have their own personalities and insanities. And the different patients are what really makes this slasher film interesting as each bring their own level of crazy to the unfolding story with some being more dangerous than others, but in the end we have that all the patients can be driven to commit murder. The film is also pretty bloody for the time and budget level with some of the splatter being really well done, and the ending of the film that has the patients hacking away on the Doctor is the best kill in the film. I have to say that Rosie Holotik who plays Nurse Charlotte Beale is not only beautiful but also is not a bad actress, and she would be in two other horror films “Horror High” and “Encounter With The Unknown” and she should have done more as she could have easily became a top casted actress in horror if she would have stuck around longer. The film falling into the public domain has given many people a chance to see it as many companies have released it on home media, it’s has been hosted by many horror hosts and can be found on streaming sites and this hide release for the film is good as it has allowed it to keep building on it’s cult statues. This film is 100% a product of its time as it was a perfect fit for the Drive-In Theater as well as the Grindhouse ones and sadly films like this do not have a theatrical outlet like they use to and they get dumped on one of the many streaming services and get lost in the mountain of content they consume to fill their product…and along the way loose lots of money doing so. But if you have not see Don’t Look In The Basement give it a shot if you like 70’s indie horror flicks.

As you can see, Dr. Geraldine S. Masters is truly unstable and the film Don’t Look In The Basement has earned its cult statues over the years, as it really is an unsettling fright film. It’s crazy that still to this day that more comic publishers and creators are not making comics based on horror or sci-fi films as both of those film genres have great characters and worlds for creators to play in. I mean so many horror films over the centuries should and should have gotten the comic book treatment. And now we are at the review part of this update and as I stated before I will not be giving this comic any type of rating as I was connected to the making of this comic. I would like to thank Marc Gras Cots for creating this comic for Blood Scream Comics and making this update possible. So if you are ready, let’s head to Stephen’s Sanitarium and see what the inmates are up to.

Don’t Look In The Basement # 1
Released in 2017 Cover Price $4.99 Blood Scream # 1 of 1

Nurse Charlotte Beale has shown up to the Stephens Sanitarium as it’s her first day at the job as she has been hired a few days back as they are short handed. She is greeted by Dr. Geraldine S. Masters, who informs her that Dr. Stephens has been killed by one of the patients and now she is the sole Doctor in charge and after some words Masters allows Charlotte to stay on and the next day introduces her to the patients that are Danny a prankster who acts like a spoiled brat, Sgt. Jaffee who lost his mind after he lead his men into battle that caused them all to die, Jennifer a depressed quite young woman, Mrs. Callingham has a broken mind and speak in poems and thinks flowers are her kids, Harriet who carries a baby doll and thanks its her baby, Judge Oliver W. Cameron who has lost his mind and only speaks in court talk, Allyson King a missed used woman who looks for love from anyone and last is Sam a mountain of a man who has a mind of a child. The next day Charlotte finds that Mrs. Callingham has cut out her own tongue and someone has also cut the phone wires cutting of the Sanitarium’s outside communication! And when a phone man shows up he is confronted by Dr. Masters who is mad that he just walked in and later he is cornered by Allyson who uses her flirty ways, and later that night Judge and Sam are talking and Judge says he killed Dr. Stephens with an axe while Sam say he is still alive! And in another room Dr. Masters burns some paper in the hand of Sgt. Jaffee for not going to bed when she told him to, showing that she demands respect. The next day Sam finds the body of the telephone repairman and Allyson snaps and tells Charlotte that Dr. Masters is really a patient who killed the repairman, cut the tongue our of Mrs. Callingham and will kill anyone who exposes her dirty secret! Charlotte goes around and asks many of the patients if it’s true that Masters is not a true Doctor and is a patient like them, and when she finds out that its all true she also learns she is trapped inside and that the phones are still not working. Charlotte then finds the body of Dr. Stephens in the basement as Sam grabs her on the orders of Dr. Masters who wants to cut Charlotte up and remove the illness from her! But Charlotte is able to talk with Sam who stops Dr. Masters from cutting her and the other inmates arrive into the room and start slaughtering Dr. Masters as Charlotte is able to escape the Sanitarium and run for her life away from the madness and slaughter.

This comic adaptation cuts out the opening death of the old nurse and the attack on Dr. Stephens by Judge in order to build more of the suspense on what is the dark secrets of this mental hospital, and I think it is very much achieved as the story unfolds for Charlotte and the reader. The plot is this a young nurse shows up for her first day of work at a mental hospital only to find that the doctor who hired her died in an accident and she soon learns all those around her truly are crazy and all hide a sinister murderous rage that explodes out in the end. The comic as well does a great job of following Nurse Charlotte Beale as she is the main focus of the whole issue and this makes the patients and Dr. Masters the background players who add to the haunting atmosphere of the horrors the young nurse must face as while she is getting to know them she also can not fully trust them. And with this shift of focusing on Charlotte also gives us the reader the element of not truly seeing the more mental and friendly side to the patients which makes for some uneasy reading as we get deeper and deeper into the Sanitarium. We do also get to see the more evil sides of Dr. Geraldine S. Masters as around Charlotte she is firm yet understanding, well that is until her secret is exposed while to the other patients she is cruel as she removes ones tongue and burns another’s hand just for questioning her authority! Dr. Masters is very cruel and very much driven by her madness of wanting to be a real doctor, but she also meets her gruesome end when her fellow patients cannot take her cruelty any longer. While they are around Sam, Judge, Jaffee, Callingham and Allyson play their parts to move along the story while sadly Jennifer, Harriet and Danny only appear very briefly. The comic does have some bloody kills with the death of Dr. Masters being the most brutal and something horror comic readers will love. The cover is really great and captures the screaming mouth of Charlotte with the logo in the middle and fans of this film will truly enjoy this tribute to the films trailer. And artist Marc Gras does a great job on the interiors, as he is able to draw out the creepy atmosphere of the film and capture the characters look and moods. Don’t Look In The Basement is a perfect film to be made into a horror comic, and I was honored to work alongside Marc Gras and Blood Scream Comics to make it possible. Check out the artwork below to see the style used by Marc in this spooky comic.

As you can see, our time at Stephens Sanitarium has came to a very bloody end as Dr. Masters got what was coming to her and not truly the inmates are running the asylum! I for one would love to someday revisit Don’t Look In The Basement with an issue # 2 that would be our creative teams vision of what happened to Nurse Charlotte, Sam and a few other others after the events of the film/comic, and who knows if this will ever happen only time will truly tell. Well with that said let me take a moment to let you know that our next update will take us to Satan Place: A Soap Opera From Hell that is a 80’s long forgotten horror comedy anthology film, so that will be a fun one for sure am I right? So until next time, read a horror comic of three, watch a horror film or two, and as always, support your local Horror Host. See you next update as we will also be meeting Sally Satan, one of the many oddities that lives in Satan Place.

The World’s Greatest Detective: Inch High Private Eye

Posted on February 12, 2022 by bloodlinematt

Welcome back to Rotten Ink, readers and friends. I think we need some help solving a case, you see this blog is 10 Years Old this year and we need a good update about a topic that I loved in my youth, something that always captured my imagination and had me glued to the TV when an episode was on. So in order to find this topic I decided to hire a detective or even a P.I. to help me find just the right topic to cover I called Dick Tracy, Batman, Sherlock Holmes and even Jonni Thunder, all of whom have gotten the Rotten Ink treatment over the years and none were available to help! But then I found a Private Eye, an Inch High one who not only helped me solve the case, but he became the case. That’s right, on this update we will be talking about the Hanna-Barbara cartoon character Inch High Private Eye! So let’s all become gumshoes, and let’s talk about a classic Private Eye that’s only an inch high that brought a young me so much entertainment via his cartoon.

Inch High is a private investigator who took a very top-secret formula that shrunk him down to being only an inch high! Because of his tiny size, he can get the information about his subject for his client and it makes it so much easier for him to crack and solve cases. He is helped on his cases by his niece Lori, Gator and Braveheart the dog and works for The Finkerton Detective Agency for his boss Mr. Finkerton who dislikes him and keeps waiting for the day he can fire him! Inch High travels the world to solve cases and comes across all types of creeps, thieves and weirdos. Inch High would go onto be in episodes of “Harvey Birdman Attorney At Law” with his first appearance being in 2004 in an episode that has Inch High being fired over his size by Mr. Finkerton. He then hires Harvey, and they file a lawsuit about size discrimination. After that episode Inch High is shown around the office and is mostly getting tormented or squashed. Inch High also is a character on the HBOmax series Jellystone! that has many of the Hanna-Barbara characters living in the same town. So while he might not have had the fame of Yogi Bear or Scooby-Doo, Inch High Private Eye has made his mark on the world of cartoon and the world is a better place for it.

Back in the 60’s and 70’s, one of the biggest cartoon companies was Hanna-Barbera Productions as they delivered so many now iconic characters to viewers like Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Wally Gator, Top Cat, The Flintstones, The Jetsons and Johnny Quest to name a very small amount. TV stations needed more and more cartoons as the youth of the time flocked to their televisions to watch the newest toon to grace their screens, and on NBC starting on September 8, 1973 they got treated to Hanna-Barbera Productions newest creation called Inch High Private Eye! The show cast Lennie Weinrib to voice Inch Eye, a skilled voice actor who is known for lending his pipes to such characters as H.R. Pufnstuf, Scrappy-Doo, Gomez Addams, Stanley Chan and Grimace for McDonalds commercials. Rounding out the main voice cast is Kathy Gori, Don Messick, Bob Luttrell and John Stephenson. The show was met with mixed reviews at the time of release with many kids enjoying it, but it did not capture that must-watch TV status and only lasted 13 episodes and was cancelled by NBC on December 1, 1973. When the show ended, it would be dormant for many years until the 1980’s when the show started to air again as part of the USA Cartoon Express on the USA Network. This is how I first saw the show and became a fan. Inch High Private Eye then would go on to be shown on Cartoon Network and Boomerang, gaining the show even more of a cult following. The series would be released as apart of Warner Brothers disc on demand releases that were based on the old Hanna-Barbera cartoons. While Inch High Private Eye is not as well known or loved as many other cartoons from the 70’s, it is one that you should check out if you have never seen it.

Because the show was very short lived, not much merchandise was created around Inch High for fans to collect, and that’s a shame as even to this day with his cult following he still does not get much. Besides the comic book appearance for Fun-In Comics he also got some drinking glasses, a metal lunchbox, pellet gun toy as well as over the years has graced art prints, buttons, shirts and stickers. The show also has had episodes released on VHS and the complete series on DVD. It’s odd to me that he has not gotten the Funko Pop treatment yet as well as did not get at least one official figure over the years. I own the comic and the DVD and would like to at some point get a cool t-shirt of him.

When I was growing up, cartoons were always a big topic on the playground, as kids would always talk about the newest episodes of their favorite ones and would even make up stories that featured their favorite cartoon characters. In Waynesville I can remember that lots of kids loved the old Looney Tunes and Hanna-Barbra cartoons with names like Bugs Bunny, Scooby-Doo, Yogi Bear, Daffy Duck and Tasmanian Devil being super popular ones. It’s a shame that kids don’t get Saturday Morning Cartoons or after school toons any more like we had in the 80’s and 90’s…but I guess they have so many more all day cartoon networks to watch now as well as streaming services so what do I know. I want to thank an Ebay seller for having this comic in stock and want to remind you all that I grade these comics on a star scale of 1 to 4 and am looking for how well the comics stay to the source material, their entertainment value and their art and story. I also want to say that Inch High Private Eye was part of a comic series called “Fun-In” that showcased a different Hanna-Barbera character in each issue, and sadly he was only showcased on one issue! But if you are ready, let’s go on some cases with Inch High and Whitman Comics!

Fun-In # 14 **1/2
Released in 1974 Cover Price .25 Whitman # 14 of 15

“The Fashion Rustlers”- Inch High is mad at his boss Mr. Finkerton who is asleep in his office demanding that Inch High hit the streets and get the company some cases. He then decides to go to the beach with Lori and Gator as Lori is excited to show the world her one of a kind bikini she bought from fashion designer Pierre LeFlair, but it’s not one of kind as the whole beach is filled with young ladies wearing it, and Inch Eye has a case of fashion robbery to solve as is Pierre a conman or is someone stealing is designs and selling them at discount stores. The Toy Department Manger and a man named Martin are working for the ones stealing the designs and selling them at mass market. Inch Eye is able to take down Martin and the Toy Manager and finds the Boss who is stealing the designs and brings him down by using cloth and a sewing machine. “Gives Crime –Co A Black-Eye” – Inch High notices that Lori is missing from the office, and he and Gator go to her apartment to find her not inside and signs of a struggle are all around, along with the help of trusty dog Braveheart they follow her scent and find her tied up and being held captive by Crime-Co who all rush out and think they have stomped Inch High to death! But in reality Inch High follows them to their hideout and uses Judo to take some of the bad guys out and just as Lori and Gator show up out front, Inch jumps from the window riding a paper airplane and has Gator use a sewer grate to block the door and hold the criminals inside until the police show up.

This is a fun kids comic based on the cartoon that has Inch Eye Private Eye in two adventures that have him stop crime as well as theft and all the while use his judo on those who cross his tiny path. The first case has him solving fashion theft and the second has him bringing down a crime syndicate that put a hit on him. Inch Eye in this comic is confidante and has great ideas to bring down crime, he also is skilled at fighting as he uses judo to throw around the bigger foes and can use his charm on the ladies to get answers. Inch Eye also uses his size to solve cases and is able to get into areas that others cant. Gator and Braveheart are around and add some needed muscle and tracking to the Private Eye team. Lori who is Inch Eye’s niece and secretary is also very helpful on trying to solve the cases, but I am pretty sure who ever wrote this comic had never seen an episode as at one point they do a cheesy proposal gag between Lori and Inch Eye…and as a reader I was like they are related and this is gross. The bad guys are very cookie cutter and are super easily beat and that’s fitting for a comic based on a Saturday Morning Cartoon. The stories have a good flow and build the case and then have a fun wrap up ending that has Inch Eye solving the case. But I will also say that I think modern readers who are not a fan of Inch Eye or even grew up watching the cartoon might find the comic a little boring cause its not your normal high action kids comics that we have today. The cover is great and very 70’s Whitman style and captures the mood and style of Inch Eye. The interior art is done by an unknown artist and is great stuff and looks just like the cartoon, so who ever did the art should be proud of themselves for doing it right. Over all this comic does a great job of capturing the over all look and vibe of the cartoon with only one hic-up being the weird Lori having a crush on Inch Eye thing. I would say if you watch or watched Inch Eye Private Eye you should check this comic out as I feel you would really enjoy it. Check out the art below to see the style used in this comic.

Inch High Private Eye was one of my favorite classic characters in the world that William Hanna and Joe Barbara created, and while he is not my top favorite, he definitely is in my Top 20 from them! For those wondering, Yogi Bear is my top Hanna-Barbara cartoon character with Scooby-Doo, Blue Falcon and Huckleberry Hound all being super high as well on my list. Well now that this Update Case is over we will be leaving the office of Inch High and will be heading to back to Skull Island as we have to cover Godzilla vs. Kong and the two graphic novels based on the Titans! So until next time, read a comic or three, watch a cartoon or two and as always support your local Horror Host. See you next time for some Kaiju destruction.