Synopsis
Keira Woods’ daughter mysteriously vanishes in the cellar of their new house. She soon discovers there is an ancient and powerful entity controlling their home that she will have to face or risk losing her family’s souls forever.
“The Cellar” is a mess of a horror movie that I truly wanted to like, but in the end the spooky math of “The Cellar” didn’t add up for me.
When I watch and judge a film, I try to look at it in its totality. There are parts of this movie that will leave you hoping for something decent. I mean, we have a haunted house plagued by some Lovecraftian mathematical formula that may open the gates to Hell. We have a strong working mother trying to rescue her child and save her family. That sounds like an equation for success, right?
Wrong.
The problem is that those elements never coagulate into something interesting. Everything in this film is a throwaway trope stacked on top of a cliche, stacked on top of a trope, stacked on a cliche… etc. You’ve seen the elements of this movie done with more assiduity and mastery elsewhere.
The movie starts with the Woods family moving into their new home. We have moments with the mother, Kiera (Elisha Cuthbert), and the daughter, Ellie (Abby Fitz). Here we get a glimpse into their withering relationship, but you don’t care because the dialogue is atrocious and the acting seems to be at once stiff and overdramatic. Ellie’s tantrums and teenage angst quickly become grating. Kiera just seems cold and distant in a way that screams that Elisha Cuthbert already wanted out of this film. This becomes odd later on when it turns out Elisha Cuthbert ends up carrying this film, but I digress. Soon Ellie goes missing when the power goes out and she tries to go down into the titular cellar to reset the breaker. Kiera investigates the house and its sordid history. Soon she must face an ancient evil or risk losing her family.
Writer/Director Brendan Muldowney throws all the classics at us, but with no gusto and hardly any conviction. Creaking and self slamming doors, lights blinking out, weird symbols, pentagrams, and creepy shadows. Hell, he even threw in a dusty phonograph that plays the audio of a professor reading an alchemical formula that opens a gateway to evil. To be honest though, I liked that bit better when it was a reel to reel with Kandarian passages.
The dialogue is awkward and heavily expository at times. The plot barely pulls at any string too hard as it trudges painfully forward and characterization is left non-existent. Shots will linger too long on nothing and some shots look like they were composed by a first time made for TV director. That said, some of the shots and angles of the cellar or the hidden playroom closet really produced a sense of dread.
Elisha Cuthbert should get some credit here. While everyone seemed like they cashed their checks and phoned it in, Cuthbert carries this film. Now, she really doesn’t start the film that way. Her first act was so wooden and cold that I almost checked out. Soon after the disappearance of Ellie, we see Cuthbert’s Kiera come to life as a mother that actually cares. She does a hell of a job selling her ridiculous lines and carrying this weak story. By the third act she is pulling out all the stops until the lackluster ending hits. By that time I can almost see how tired Cuthbert is carrying this film. She kept dragging me back to watch and to become invested in her plight. I wish, in the end, that I could just love the film for her sake.
In the end, there are so many abandoned elements that could have made “The Cellar” something truly special. A lack of vision and execution greatly marred this film. For me, this is a 3 out of 10.
Thomas Troxell
Surrounded by the twisted and eerie New England woods, Thom patiently awaits the dark ones to call him deep into the forest for the last time. Until then, he is content to consume dark and horrifying media and express his thoughts for all to read.
