The Cellar

Love creepy house movies, could have been super spooky. It was let down by the parents "what were they thinking" or not in this case. Who leaves their children in a huge old house the day after they move in, to pitch an idea at work???? The acting by the "mother" Elisha Cuthbert was great. The father was sleepwalking through the whole movie, literally no point having him. Good concept, unfortunately, lack of budget and character development let it down.

First I wanna say that I rented this without hesitation because I'm a big Elisha Cuthbert fan. She is definitely the best part of the movie and about the only lead even though she has kids and is married. She does a good job with what she has to work with, but the problem is what she has to work with.

The plot itself is interesting enough for a decent horror flick, but it ends up as just squandered potential. We've seen all this before, but at the very least they could go all the way with their ideas. Nothing shocking, no twists, very few actually scary moments, and the actor playing her son was so bad it was honestly distracting.

It's an OK watch, but nothing I would say is worth spending money on.

The Cellar (2022) is an Irish horror movie recently added to Shudder. The storyline focuses on a family that moves into a unique house in the suburbs with their little girl and boy. Shortly after moving in the little girl disappears. As they coupe with the loss the mother finds strange marking all over the house and as she researches them she discovers her house may be a vessel to something much bigger and discovering what that is may be her only hope of finding the missing little girl.

This movie is directed by Brendan Muldowney (Love Eternal) and stars Elisha Cuthbert (House of Wax), Eoin Macken (Resident Evil: The Final Chapter), Abby Fitz (Redemption), Tara Lee (Moon Dogs) and Dylan Fitzmaurice Brady (Tides).

This movie does have some unique elements within the storyline that are well done. There is really good use of sound to create jump scares and intense circumstances. The horror elements were lacking and I was disappointed so many scenes were shot so dark. The acting is really good and the family dynamic is well established so better horror elements could have made this very good.

Overall this is an average addition to the genre that is only worth watching if you're a horror genre enthusiast. I would score this a 5/10 and recommend seeing it once.

Watching The Cellar won't kill you, I'm relatively sure about that, but it also won't scare you the least bit (but maybe in the case that you are haunted with something like a cellarphobia it may be a different matter). The movie got a few okay dark atmospheric moments, acting and production are also okay, but really, there is no real reason for the movie's existence or why you should watch this one - but The Cellar may be useful if you need some background noise while writing your next novel masterpiece or surfing thru the sales of some online shop of your choice. The "occult" in this movie is also rather just a melting pot of very superficial cliches. Verdict: meanders somewhere lost between below average and average. Exact rate: 3.5 points.

Haunted house film. I liked what they were attempting to do. This one was a bit confounding for the seasoned viewer. High production values and nice visuals. The technological aspect is enticing, but never fleshed out. Solid acting. Some interesting ideas are unfortunately crushed by cliches. The story was a fine mysterious set-up. This sounds like faint praise but this might be a good film for young teen horror fans. It felt, at times like a good introductory film for a younger set who dig the occult. Poses interesting afterlife questions for discussions about what it all was supposed to mean. It was obviously a short film expanded to "feature" length. The padding is obvious and feels unnecessary. (caught The Ten Steps (2004), the short that was the basis for this film - recommended!) The characters act as you might expect in these films. The story heads in a direction that is fairly simple. Might be fun for fans of audiophile horror and demonic records. This movie wasn't bad at all...just filled with a lot of unused potential.