“The Man In My Basement” (** out of four) was a pretentious melodrama thriller about a down-on-his-luck man (Corey Hawkins) who is about to lose his ancestral home and is approached by a bizarre businessman (Willem Dafoe) to rent out his basement; out of desperation, he agrees but soon finds out there is much more to this than he realized. Starts out creepy and effective but loses its way in a field of mumbo-jumbo twists and dialogue midway through and turns hokey and banal. By film’s end you’ll likely be calling out “huh?” Two strong performances from Hawkins and Dafoe help keep this on track as long as possible but even they eventually go down in the haze.