Horror Movie Review: The Cellar (2022)

Writer and director Brendan Muldowney attempts to channel the lingering dread that comes from the unknown via a master like H.P. Lovecraft into a bog standard ‘ghost’ story about a spooky cellar. That may be a gateway to somewhere else. Somewhere darker and more biblical.

Alas, while there are genuine moments of creep, some good visuals, and an ominous feel, the story and character work is such a mess, it’s hard to be positive about a film that will end up electing nothing more than a shoulder shrug from most who see it. Not only that, but it’s also a film that moves lethargically, even when it obviously shouldn’t.

Keira Woods (Elisha Cuthbert), her husband, Brian (Eoin Macken), and their teenage daughter, Ellen (Abby Fitz), and young son, Steven (Dylan Fitzmaurice-Brady) have all moved into a huge country house (more like a manor) and quickly discover that it’s not the warmest and most welcoming of places. In fact, while the two adults are distracted with their jobs, Ellen vanishes completely after going down into the basement.

Panic and horror ensues, right? Not quite as the pair weirdly take this all in their stride, even carrying on working, until Keira, feeling a bit guilty decides she should probably look into the weird glyphs that are all over the house. Also, occasionally the cellar door opens slowly and something unseen moves the beads on an abacus. Freaky!

Ok, I am being a bit sarcastic, but it’s so hard to not treat this story and its characters with such contempt. Seemingly wanting to say something about how a family dynamic can slowly ebb away if you let it, and how social media corrupts. I think. That second part is a bit confusing.

You see, both Keira and Brian work for a company that specialises in social network marketing, and through that, there’s a lesson about how they’ve lost of sight of how this stuff can affect them and their kids. In particular, their teenage daughter who, later, they also find out is being cyberbullied. Ok.

Does any of this matter? Not in the slightest as the film’s focus is still on ghostly-goings-on which leads us to the moment where the film just stops trying and many will be tempted to just switch it off. This is, of course, the introduction of maths professor (Aaron Monaghan) who had the most convenient of accidents turning him into a genius, capable of solving the mystery behind the glyphs using the power of maths!

It’s as dumb as it sounds, but mercifully, it does at least signal the end of the film and a literal descent into hell. Which could have been cool, except even that is approached in tired fashion. If you did manage to make it to the end without falling asleep, you won’t be rewarded for it, instead you’ll be left scratching your head as the film leaves many questions hanging in the air, unanswered.

I really didn’t like The Cellar in the end, and not just because I’ve seen it all before. No, I didn’t like it because the story and characters felt so low effort. The actors can only do so much with bad writing, and The Cellar is filled with bad writing. At best you might get a chuckle or two out of the nonsense and maybe jump once or twice, but that’s about it.