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 an Irish horror film written and directed by Brendan Muldowney, based on his short film, “The Ten Steps.” Keira (Elisha Cuthbert) and Brian (Eoin Macken) have recently bought the home of their dreams, an old country house they got for a price too good to pass up on. From the beginning, something is not right. The old owner has given them all of the house’s contents, including an old gramophone and an ominous cellar full of old junk. Despite the protests of their teenage daughter Ellie (Abby Fitz), the couple moves in and needs this move to work out, particularly as they are in a precarious position with their careers as marketing executives. After leaving their children at home for the night, their daughter goes missing, last heard from over the phone in the cellar. The police begin to investigate the disappearance with little luck. Paranormal and unexplainable events unfold in their new house, and Keira begins to investigate for herself, believing the house and the cellar, in particular, are behind her daughter’s disappearance. An investigation into the house’s history unfolds through the number of cryptic clues and symbols, with Keira determined to get to the bottom of the mystery and find Ellie.
I am conflicted about this movie. The mystery at the film’s core is intriguing enough to keep you interested, but how it plays out is annoyingly slow. Keira discovers several cryptic puzzles to uncover the truth but is criminally slow at doing so. Without spoiling anything, a particular clue takes 2-3 days for Keira to follow up on. This is representative of the movie as a whole. What could have been a tight and thrilling horror film suffers from pacing issues. Clocking in at an already lean 94 minutes, this should not be a problem, but the sluggish inquiry persists for much of the runtime.
The short that this is based on makes up a scene in the movie almost identically. The short captures the essence of what the feature film is going for; a creepy and mysterious horror film. While containing some genuinely chilling moments, these are all too rare. Instead, the scares are supplemented by bland melodramatic scary music that plays for what feels like the whole movie. Cheap jump scares are also painfully common and ruin some intense moments.
Elisha Cuthbert (“House of Wax,” “The Girl Next Door”) as Keira gives a solid performance in her return to the horror genre. Sadly, while her performance is a standout, secondary characters come across as artificial, with the acting, at times, feeling wooden. One scene where Keira meets with a physicist to help decipher a formula comes to mind. He describes to Keira how he became a genius while walking us through theoretical physics, and the scene feels comically bad from the writing to the acting. Unfortunately, there are several similar ones throughout.
While it is at times clichéd, and takes the stereotypical haunted house route, I found the mystery and subsequent ending to be very satisfying. However, it is not enough to justify sitting through the dull and plodding slog.
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