The Cellar

An "evil house" film that is occasionally Lovecraft-adjacent, Cellar's story has good bones but little meat, and I was more than once reminded of Mitchell & Webb's "Lazy Writers."

Add to that constant attempts at suspense that fall short because there aren't any stakes. The overbearing score, always letting you know to Be Really Scared Now Okay! Doesn't help. The first two thirds of the film felt like padding, like B-roll repurposed into something usable after the budget ran out.

But when we finally get there, it's actually a pretty good ending! And the acting is adequate, and the production values are good. They just should have left half of this on the cutting room floor.

Okay for a movie you watch with friends, fully intending to talk over half of it.

It has a good plot. But I would say it's a lot of talking and searching rather than enough suspenseful moments to be a full on horror. So if you want a tense horror movie for the whole time this isn't it. But it has good acting. Good plot. Some scary elements, but not really any jump scares, and it is filmed very well.

Overall definitely worth the watch.

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.

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.

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.