170. The Cellar; movie review

THE CELLAR

Cert 15

94 mins

BBFC advice: Contains strong threat, horror

Another week and another haunted house movie.

In common with so many films before it, Brendan Muldowney's The Cellar has a flicker of original thought but then slips back into cliche alley.

It stars Elish Cuthbert and  Eoin Macken as high-powered marketing executives who have moved to a mansion with their teenage daughter (Abby Fitz) and younger son (Dylan Fitzmaurice Brady).

Inevitably, the house looks as if it should be in a Scooby Doo episode and the teenager is stroppy bordering on belligerent.

Within a minute of their arrival, the air of menace is clear with weird noises and a cellar door which keeps closing of its own accord.

Then, when her parents leave her to babysit her brother, the teenager disappears.

This should have been the catalyst for a desperate and exciting search but this horror is nowhere near as tense as it should be.

It is particularly baffling why Macken's character seems to have given up on seeing his daughter again.

Indeed, her mum seems to be the only one who is looking for answers.

Those she finds are in the realms of the supernatural and the more she digs the more both she and her family could be in peril.

I regularly wonder whether makers of haunted house horrors are they just happy to fall into a long list of the predictable.

There is nothing here which will prompt me to remember it beyond next week.

Reasons to watch: Supernatural horror

Reasons to avoid: A bagful of movie cliches

Laughs: None

Jumps: One

Vomit: None

Nudity: None

Overall rating: 3.5/10

Did you know? The haunted house premise in films dates back to a 1927 silent movie called The Cat and the Canary in which a family is stalked by a mysterious figure inside a decaying mansion that overlooks New York’s Hudson River.

The final word. Elisha Cuthbert: "I thought there was a maturity, or a sophistication, to the writing. But I had also had my own daughter and could relate to where my character was at her life with her children. I understood the feeling of wanting to go to the depths of the world to find your child, so that’s what connected me to the script.“ Bloody Disgusting

 

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