Cellar Door

I cannot believe that I watched that movie twice. First at the beginning of November and today again. I watched it and thought: "Kind of familiar." Well, I continued to watch it.

After the movie wrapped up, I was like: "Dang, I watched it already."

It's how forgettable this movie is. Oh my God, I was so dumb wasting the same amount of time twice. It's a very bad movie. Forgettable, basically background noise. I wouldn't wonder if my troglodyte-brain sees that movie in the "what to watch"-list and I choose that movie again at the beginning of January.

It's really bad. And I cannot believe how dumb I am for watching it twice... 🙄

In the beginning I thought that the premise was something psychological or allegoric and the pitch was something in the lines of, Adam and Eve meet Alex Forrest, for those of you that don't know who she is, it is the character of Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, by the end I realized that I was wrong, that there wasn't a metaphor and that the twists and turns were so forced that what could have been great idea didn't go anywhere.

Personally I hate open endings and I find them disrespectful to the audience and frustrating.

Two hours is too much time to invest in a movie without a conclusion or a clear ending.

Cellar Door just failed to deliver in my opinion. Even though there's a non-predictable twist it's still not good enough to stand out from the rest in the thriller genre. Director Vaughn Stein must be an avid television watcher as his movie is nothing more than a mediocre tv-movie copy. If you want to make a good movie you firstly need a good soundtrack, certainly not that typical tv-movie piano soundtrack. Just that alone makes your movie look cheap. Add to that some average acting and you have the perfect recipe for a movie that nobody will remember. I have no clue why Lawrence Fishburne would even think in participating even if he has a very small role. He's probably just a poster filler, a name that attracks an audience. I wouldn't waste your time with this one unless you like forgettable Sunday afternoon tv-movies.

I like a slow burner but there needs to be a payoff and here there simply isn't.

There's very little that is tense or exciting. The story goes nowhere really and gives us nothing new. The script is lazy and the result is some pretty tepid central performances. There is so much exposition there is no tension at all.

Laurence Fishburne is a highlight. He's engaging for the time he's onscreen.

I think the intention is for viewers to make their own conclusion, to leave the payoff to their own imaginations. The trouble is the movie just wasn't engaging enough for me to invest so I just left it feeling disappointed.

I had not heard about this 2024 thriller titled "Cellar Door" prior to sitting down to watch it, so I didn't know what I was in for. But that is how it is with the vast majority of the movies I watch, as I don't watch trailers, nor keep up with upcoming movies. If I stumble upon a movie that I haven't already seen, such as the case with "Cellar Door", I sit down to watch it.

Writers Sam Scott and Lori Evans Taylor put together a rather generic and stereotypical script and storyline here. Sure, it was a watchable enough movie, but there wasn't much of any great thrills to be had throughout the course of the movie. And that sort of made sitting through "Cellar Door" a somewhat bland and mundane viewing experience.

Of the entire cast ensemble, I was only familiar with Scott Speedman and Laurence Fishburne. It should be noted, though, that the acting performances in the movie were good.

I suppose that if you are a diehard thriller fan, then you might be getting a bigger kick out of watching "Cellar Door" than I did. Something I was finding to be missing from the movie was that I was never pushed to the edge of my seat out of sheer thrill and excitement. It was a rather mundane movie, to be honest.

This is not a movie that will find its way back to my screen a second time.

My rating of director Vaughn Stein's 2024 thriller "Cellar Door" lands on a four out of ten stars.