Writer/director Brendan Muldowney expands his 2004 short film The Ten Steps into a feature length treatment with The Cellar (Ireland; 2022). The result is an interesting watch that doesn’t offer a lot in the way of originality, but is bolstered by a solid performance from Elisha Cuthbert (House of Wax; Captivity).
Cuthbert plays Keira Woods, who is moving into a house with her family — husband Brian (Eoin Macken of The Forest), teen daughter Ellie (Abby Fitz), and preteen son Steven (Dylan Fitzmaurice Brady) — that just happens to be riddled with strange symbols and, of course, a creepy cellar. When Keira and Brian are at a late work meeting one night and the power goes out at home, Keira talks a petrified Ellie down the darkened stairs by candlelight over the phone, only for the girl to disappear.
Though some write off Ellie as a runaway, Keira believes she is alive and that her disappearance has something to do with the cellar, not to mention all the peculiar trappings in the house. As with most husbands in fear fare, Brian thinks that Keira is going overboard and becoming obsessed, but Muldowney lets viewers know from the onset that this is not a case of a frantic mother merely giving into fear and clinging to hope, and the Woods family members find themselves headed toward an eldritch situation.
Seasoned horror movie buffs will find plenty of familiar beats in The Cellar, from haunted house tropes to demonic entities and other elements that I won’t spoil here, but the presentation, different spins on certain approaches, and Cuthbert’s committed performance balance out, if not outweigh, those factors. Whereas The Ten Steps ran lean and mean, Muldowney opens up the fright-filled world building here and shows a fine knack for suspenseful set pieces.
The Cellar, from Shudder and RLJE Films, will release in theaters and streaming on Shudder on April 15, 2022.
