Beastonthehorrorexpress79

THE CELLAR.

Directed by Jamie Langlands, THE CELLAR doesn't mess about and immediately throws us into its underlying mystery, which kind of reminded me of 2008's MARTYRS and SAW 2004, as we're wondering where and why our victims are being held captive. What impressed me straight away was the cinematography, colour lighting and very tense looking close up angle shots.

Considering its very low budget production, everything was filmed very crisply and the cast performances had me locked in straightaway, especially @megan_adara as Abigail. Although her character is mostly muted throughout the whole film, she puts in a great character performance that had me feeling tense with suspense but invested with her journey and what was going on, which made it more emotionally impactful when she finally did speak.

THE CELLAR is a nice slow moving story that asks for your patience; it may look cheap compared to your usual big budget Hollywood films, but the suspense had the same feeling as films you'd associate with say Alfred Hitchcock. There's a moment in the film that suddenly clicked for me, which I won't go into for spoilers but, as someone who's had to battle with my own demons, it really resonated. The puzzle starts to piece together, whilst maintaining its ambiguity, leaving room for different perspectives.

Overall I was fully pleased with how the story was structured, and every actor did a great job which included minimal roles but solid performances from everyone involved.

Reviewed by Andy Beglin (Beast on the horror express)

Directed by Joshua Sowden, THE BOOK OF THE WITCH is a solid micro-budget indie horror film that blends Western American folk horror, with supernatural witch fantasy. It oozes lots of dreamy atmosphere and great wide angle shots with darkened silhouettes of our characters, giving us this doom impending slow burning mystery. I was very impressed with the production and cinematography right from the get go, and all done on a micro budget of $12k.

Victoria, who is plagued by her fear of death, becomes obsessed with tracking down a witch and stealing her book of spells out in the Californian desert; to help cheat death and become eternal, but there's a price to be paid. Like a moth drawn to the flame, you already sense the impending doom that's awaiting like a well planned trap. The visuals from Joshua Sowden were created nicely and I really enjoyed the dreamy sound design too.

Overall, I genuinely enjoyed THE BOOK OF THE WITCH, and thought the cast were all very solid with their performances. Krishna Smitha was excellent throughout the whole film and her chemistry with Danny Parker-Lopes was great too. Despite some little issues I had towards the end, where I felt personally that the film may have hurried itself to the finish line, I still enjoyed the film as a whole. I also loved the psychological hallucinatory fever dream feel throughout the whole story in a way that reminded me of David Lynch. I'll definitely be looking out for further projects from these filmmakers in the future.