This year’s Glasgow FrightFest event is now over. The last two days have seen twelve new genre offerings to the horror crowd, culminating with a World Premiere of Ireland-set chiller The Cellar. Debuting just hours ahead of its US screening at SXSW, Brendan Muldowney’s latest film is a mind-bending blend of maths and horror. Mathematics alone can be terrifying enough for many, but here Muldowney goes for broke as he tells the story of alchemy equations.
The Cellar opens well, the opening credits shrouded in darkness, taking their time to roll out, accompanied by some intensely atmospheric music. Eventually the camera settles on a shot peering up from the vantage of the bottom of the cellar steps. This shot generates the perfect balance of mystery and threat to instantly have the viewer on edge. It’s unclear whether it’s looking through the eyes of someone or if there’s an even more sinister reason for the image, and it gets the fright feelings in early. If the title hadn’t already given it away, this opening confirms to the audience that the cellar is a dangerous place and ramps up the fear when our newly relocated family move in and begin to explore.
There’s something elegantly creepy about the initial set-up, the camera wandering around the house, moving from room to room. It moves independent of the house’s new occupants, pointing out all the creepy corners and corridors, though not the deadly secret contained within the walls. The latest residents of the abode are Keira (Elisha Cuthbert), her husband Brian (Eion Macken), and their two children, teenager Ellie (Abby Fitz) and youngest Steven (Dylan Fitzmaurice Brady). As they investigate their new property, Ellie is instantly highlighted as a target, getting locked into the titular cellar almost immediately. Whilst her family brush it off as a freak accident, Ellie is shaken and is the first to recognise the strange power that the chamber has. From here on there’s a great chain of events that lead to Ellie succumbing to the cellar, the mystery surrounding her disappearance forming the foundation for the rest of the film.
Unfortunately after this intense first fifteen minutes or so The Cellar quickly starts to lose much of it’s individuality as it descends into formulaic and almost ‘paint-by-numbers’ tropes. There’s nothing wrong with a horror film being generic, sometimes that level of predictability works as a comfort, and this is how The Cellar operates. The familiar elements create an easy weeknight watch and is the kind of film that performs well on streaming services (handy that Shudder has already acquired it). Several of the scares are effectively realised, but what brings The Cellar down is its slow and steady pace. As it covers so many traditional elements – hysterical women, researching on the internet, meeting an expert, recklessly trying to fix the issue alone – it becomes a little tedious waiting to get to the next event. Time drags out in many places and it’s late night screening slots may be a tad ill conceived, as with little freshness to stimulate the mind, the audience are in danger of nodding off.
In addition to the unoriginal narrative structure, the characters are a little hard to believe in. Over the course of the film, Keira and company hit almost all of the horror film bingo errors and it detracts from their performances. The cast give it their all, but some scripted decisions leave the viewer on wobbly ground with the characters. The most questionable action revolves around the treatment of youngest child Steven. Having already lost their eldest child, and Kiera believing that the house is responsible, it seems preposterous that she wouldn’t keep a closer eye on her remaining child. Kiera and Brian repeatedly investigate the strange phenomena without Steven present, even after the building sets its sight on him. Furthermore, each time they have to rescue Steven, they seem shocked and surprised, this quickly grates on the viewer and drives a wedge between audience and character.
As the plot and character decisions wobble, it is left to composer Stephen McKeon to keep the atmosphere going. McKeon previously composed the music for fellow Irish horror The Hole in the Ground so is no stranger to crafting a sinister score. His work for The Cellar is hypnotically haunted, maintaining the necessary unease and invoking the perfect spooky environment. It’s a shame that some unnecessarily prolonged expositional scenes drag it down slightly.
Adequately scary, just not as frightening as it has the potential to be, The Cellar invests a little too much time conforming to expectations. Great for a night on the sofa, but not one likely to keep you up all night.
The Cellar
Summary
The Cellar starts well, creating a suitably sinister atmosphere, but quickly gets dragged down into conventional pitfalls, and struggles to find its identity again thereafter.
The Cellar was reviewed at FrightFest Glasgow 2022. Shudder will release The Cellar on 15th April.
