The Cellar

If you stick with it, The Cellar performs a kind of alchemy on screen: turning from a staid haunted house movie into a haunted house movie with a real sense of ambition and fun. I just wish it had more interest in its female leads.

It's a solid Friday night spookshow with solid bones and a divisive finisher — harmless horror entertainment that at least strives to be better than ordinary.

Aside from the one chilling scene grafted straight from The Ten Steps and its gorgeous, historic filming location, The Cellar just isn’t that deep.

The Cellar doesn't even need to be a smarter or even more faithful homage. All it needs to be is a little more of something—energetic, gross, thoughtful ... something!—to make it compelling enough to withstand comparisons to its many generic precedents.

If horror flicks came in cans like fake spaghetti, this would be the kind of can-shaped wormy mess that would slowly ooze out when held upside down and shaken.

Like Cuthbert, The Cellar oozes with potential but isn’t given enough—or doesn’t do enough—with what’s there, creating a subdued experience for viewers.

Writer-director Brendan Muldowney is better at contriving striking images of horror, filmed with umbral gloom by cinematographer Tom Comerford, than at the character and story stuff.

The Cellar is another low-budget Shudder movie. Movies like this are boring now bit idiotic. There is a creature that existed even before life, but you can hide behind the door and escape from it. We love horror movies but not that much.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]