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Rish's Reviews
This had a cool story, with a kind of lame execution. Basically, the lovely Debrah Mullowney (aka Farentino) stars as a would-be comic book artist (yeah, I know), who comes to an artistic retreat where her comic artist hero (holy cow--Jeffrey Combs!) lived and died decades earlier. Rather than connecting with the other eccentric and/or awful artists at the school, she delves into its cellar, where she unwittingly unleashes the murderous demon that was conjured up there many years previous . . . a demon that is somehow linked to comic book art.
On second thought, maybe this wasn't such a cool story.
Combs is pretty good, as usual, though I would've preferred they film his story rather than the "x years later" one. Yvonne DeCarlo (who you know as Lily Munster) also stars as the head of the art school, a terrible, corrupt old woman that kept reminding me of my aunt for some reason. The lead actress was quite attractive, but hey, they usually are.
Although credited to Kit Du Bois, this is apparently the only Chucky-free film written by Child's Play scribe Don Mancini. I sometimes wonder why filmmakers use fake names, especially when they use their real names on substandard fare, but I suppose I'll never know. Directed by special makeup effects "legend" John Carl Buechler, I got the impression that 80% of the budget went into making the creature, an anamatronic gorilla-devil that is shown way too much to be effective. It was seventy-five minutes long, which doesn't seem notable, but I jotted it down for some reason.
Light and harmless, it gets points for Jeffrey Combs and being set in the Eighties. There was also a cool pre-credits sequence. Nothing afterwards was as cool, however. I feel it really squandered its potential (and there actually was some here).
The film itself is pretty well set-up, feeling a bit like a detective story a la Ten Little Indians or Murder on the Orient Express. With a demon, that is. Besides not believing our heroine, it looks like the characters are going to accuse HER of committing the murders. Unfortunately, this falls apart pretty quickly. Most of the attempts at humour fell apart as well, but I appreciate what they tried to do.
I had to decide whether Cellar Dweller is a bad title or not. I mean, clearly it is, but in the context of the film ("Cellar Dweller" is the name of the Fifties-era comic book that conjured the demon), it seems okay. Ultimately, the film was neither terrible nor excellent, merely mediocre. And in 2005, I'm much more forgiving of movies like this than I used to be.
I was surprised to find links to Cellar Dweller 3 and 4 on the IMDB. I consider myself to be something of a horror film expert (well, I've seen a couple, here and there), but I'd never even heard of Cellar Dweller, let alone any sequels. Turns out those were part of a completely different series in a very . . . different movie genre.
I'd Recommend It To: Well, the Eighties were a good time for Horror. If you manage to stumble upon it and it intrigues you, give it a rent.
Posted: March 14, 2005

Total Skulls: 18

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears		Yvonne DeCarlo
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?