The Beast in the Cellar

Sometimes a film just captivates your imagination. I first saw The Beast In The Cellar when I recorded it off late-night British TV, in 1992. I've since watched it in it's Odeon DVD incarnation, and it still resonates.

It may not be shocking, surprising or horrific, but I just 'enjoy' this film. The interplay between Beryl Reid, who was only 51 at the time but playing much older, and Flora Robson, represents the ending era of traditional British actresses in traditional British films.

This film has spectacular photography. The credits shot of a crepuscular sunset is unsurpassed, combined with the evocatively non-lyrical theme. It is the best shot of a sunset over British countryside that I have ever seen.

The story is admittedly weak once we find out that the sisters know what they know. However, their resolve to try and keep up their 'secret' is humanistic and done well.

The 'inserts' of gore are very brief and very effectively vivid. I think for once it doesn't harm a film.

The finale of 'the monster' coming up the stairs for the sisters, largely done in 'Nosferatu' style until a last shot, is very creepy.

In short, this isn't a great film, and impatient 'Netflix' viewers will find there's a lot of talk and little 'action'. However, the drama confined to the house between the two sisters is fascinating in itself; uncovering the mystery of the dynamics between them almost becomes the thing to 'solve' rather than the 'Beast' issue.

A film I could watch again and again, albeit leave a few years between each viewing.

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed and written by James Kelly; Produced by Graham Harris; Associate Producer: Christopher Neame, for Tigon British, released in America by Cannon Films. Photography by Harry Waxman and Desmond Dickinson; Edited by Nicholas Napier-Bell; Music by Tony Macaulay. Starring: Flora Robson, Beryl Reid, Tessa Wyatt, John Hamill, Peter Craze, T. P. McKenna and Vernon Dobtcheff.

Fine low-budget horror thriller staged like a play, involving spinsters Beryl & Flora who keep a monstrous relative indoors. Excellent acting by the duo, plus repetitive but ultra-violent flash-cut gore montages focusing first-person on the victim.

I remember viewing this movie when I was a kid. I recall it terrified me immensely and it stayed with me all these years. I spent a couple of years trying to find it online...didn't remember the title, only the storyline. After searching and searching, I came across a VHS that was being sold on E-Bay. I was excited and when it finally arrived, I jammed it into the VCR and couldn't help but feel a bit nostalgic. Needless to say, I was slightly disappointed. This wasn't the movie I remember watching as a kid. It was boring at times and I found Beryl Reid's incessant whinning extremely annoying. Both performances by Reid and Flora Robson were good overall but the movie wasn't scary. I think any movie is worth viewing to form you're own opinion but sometimes, well......

Not half as bad as some make out and if as is said it went out on a double bill with 'Blood on Satan's Claw', I reckon that was pretty good value. This doesn't have the dolly birds and swinging London paraphernalia but instead two solid performances from Flora Robson and Beryl Reid more than compensates. The kills are surprisingly bloody, the situation with the two spinsters well done and although the final explanation is a bit wordy and prolonged but at least by the end we are still interested to know just who was the occupant of the cellar. Not as jolly as a lot of Tigon product and maybe the better for it for a change. More than a little creepy, not least for the way the old ladies seem, effortlessly to change roles, causing us to rethink what we reckon is going on.

Kitchen sink snooz-a-thon which seems more focused on cups of tea and nattering than being a horror. Flora Robson and Beryl Reid are the odd couple of sisters, who spend every moment having agitated little quarrels about nothing, while a vicious beast is loose on the moors, and... Oh please excuse me...would you like a cup of tea?

In the pantheon of eccentric 70s brit horrors (that were not by Hammer or Amicus), this doesn't measure up to the groovy Tower Of Evil, or the deranged Killer's Moon, or Norman J Warren's campfest 'Terror'. I recommend choosing those over this one... Now, fondant fancy? Help yourself.