Cellar Dweller (1988)

A mildly amusing title and a cameo appearance from Jeffrey Combs (dressed in his RE-ANIMATOR coat, apparently, and appearing for ten minutes at the beginning before going off to cash his pay cheque) are the best thing about this otherwise appalling movie from Empire - so at least with that company making it, you can't say you were surprised. Once again the director turns out to be John Carl Buechler, who is quickly becoming one of my most hated directors of all time - sure, the man makes good special effects, but must all effects men try directing too? It's obvious he has no talent yet still he churns these movies out.The plot is a non-existent excuse to throw a few bad actors together and have them get picked off one by one by a huge slimy demon that somehow lives in the cellar due to a comic book - childish isn't the word for it. As usual for the genre, there's plenty of poor humour, false scares and naked women being menaced by big monsters. The demon is actually quite an effective-looking monster so it's a shame that its not appearing in a better movie, and it just gets relegated to lurking around in the cellar, roaring. The violence is surprisingly kept to a minimum, and I think limited to a singular bloody decapitation scene and some severed body parts. Meanwhile, the cast is made up of boring unknowns, aside from the presence of Yvonne De Carlo who enjoys hamming it up as an unpleasant landlady - whatever happened to her career?The biggest enjoyment I had from watching this movie came when I realised that it only ran for seventy-something minutes and it was nearly over. It's one of those films which you get the feeling was only created in order to make money - neither the cast nor the crew seem to have any interest in it whatsoever, instead going through the motions and picking up their pay cheque at the end of it all. This makes it nigh on impossible for the viewer to be interested in it either. A cheap, pointless, shallow piece of drivel.

Is it art imitating death or death imitating art? I really don't know why this cool movie has languished into near obscurity over the years, I think it's one of the best horror comic themed flicks out there. I love the simple yet impressive intro credits sequence, so similar to that of my favourite ever film "Creepshow", which is also a homage to the classic macabre spirit of the old E.C. horror comics of the '50s. I always like stories and pictures that feature comic books that come to life, it's what I most enjoy about this movie and for me is the very glue that holds it together. It's just such an utterly fantastic concept, the pen-to-paper magic of the events becoming reality as they are scrawled out. The comic art panels are very fun and imaginatively executed and are used to great economic and stylistic effect. A few of the kills are very awesome and memorable where it's shown frame-by-paneled frame as the demon beast embarks upon its unholy feasts of terror. The plot is very similar to a "Tales From the Crypt" episode called "Korman's Kalamity." The tone throughout is somewhat light and silly but it still maintains a good Gothic horror atmosphere. And the location and setting weren't all that much, but are used well. A lot of eerie moodiness is generated by simple shadows, frequent thunder crashes, and howling winds - real good old-fashioned haunted dark house type stuff! The decent subtle score helps a lot as well. The look and sound are quite rough and in fact almost make it come off as a neglected B-movie at first. I mean it's clearly high on imagination, low on budget, but that doesn't prevent it from being a hell of a lot of fun and far from an average horror movie. It's great to see Jeff Combs in it, looking suspiciously professorly! But don't get too attached - he kicks the bucket even before the opening credits roll. It's too bad they didn't use him any more than they did because the rest of the cast is a bore. They're not terrible, but neither are they engaging or interesting enough that you give a s**t when they start getting eaten including the lead! Brian Robbins was especially lame and annoying. He was kinda cute but so weird looking.. His impossibly huge gob freaked me out! Looked big enough to swallow your whole head! ::: I like the rather cryptic rhyming verse that is spoken several times over the course of the plot. I don't believe it suggests that only sick people enjoy horror and are intrigued by evil, just that maybe sometimes allowing the mind linger in the darkness and on dark things for too long, and trying too hard in vain to make sense of the senseless, can corrupt and consume the careless and give rise to further badness and heartache... I love the simpleness of the closeup shots of imagery on paper during the sequence where the monster is slowly recreated with just a little inspiration from the Necronomicon-like tome of evil! The personified comic book monster incarnation of evil, the malicious Cellar Dweller, looked like a combination of a werewolf, some kind of giant ghoulie, and an ape. Kinda plain, but a very interesting design. The appropriately hulking suit was enough to convey a lot of intimidation and dark intentions, and the animatronic face was wonderfully expressive, with flexing lips, eyes and ears. And in this movie age of cgi it's always real nice to see a tangible, 'flesh and blood' creature that's physically present. He doesn't get up to all that much, but you sure couldn't say that he doesn't love his work... ::: The ending wasn't exactly a great twist and it doesn't make that much sense, but I still think it's pretty interesting and poetic with the devilish Dweller apparently being completely free to haunt imaginations untold... Maybe he just ate too much "creative energy" that he was simply too strong to be banished? At least it's not a happy ending... This is a great horror comic book fantasy that no fan of such rare offerings should be without. See ya!

I remember watching this movie on TV when I was like.... 8 years old and thinking it was really cool. Naturally being that it was regular TV, all the gore and nudity was cut out, so when I came across it in a blockbuster used videos for sale basket for $5.99, I snatched it up. That was almost 3 years ago and I still watch it on a regular basis. For the time it was made in, the effect were pretty decently done. The monster was kinda cheesy, I have even heard some people call it "cute" but his methods sure as hell weren't cute and thats what made the movie better. The appearance of Jeffery-Herbert West-Combs was a treat for me when I got the video home, because as a child, I always somehow managed to miss the beginning of the film. When I watched it from the start and saw him in in, I already had a smile on my face going into the movie. It doesn't have a deep, life enriching story, its not gonna educate the youth of America, but its a cool flick and I think most horror movie buffs will side with me on that. As I said, the effects are pretty decent- that decapitation was one for the record books. This movie only had one thing that I really find to be a downer in horror films and that was off-screen kills. I hate it when horror movies cheap out like that, its like they are cheating the viewer. Now, correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the point of watching 9 out of every 7 horror movies is to watch people die in unique and gory ways? So when it happens off screen, the point is disabled. SPOILERS AHEAD: There are only 2 off-screen kills in this movie. The one in the end, the death of Lisa, I might be able to attribute to them running low on the budget being that it was near the end of the movie. However, Amanda's off-screen death is the monsters first kill and if Lisa's death was off screen because of lack of funds, what was the reason for Amanda being killed off screen? Yes, I know, there was blood splashing on the walls, but that only gets you so far. There are people who are gonna read this and say "those 2 kills were off screen because you can't show people being ripped into pieces on screen" And as it happens, both Amanda and Lisa were ripped apart, and if I may go so far as to mention, the only nudity in the film, aside from the girl in the very start of the movie, is Lisa walking around in her room after getting out of the shower and finding her towel missing. She thinks the young guy (I don't remember his name off hand)took it and so she walks out into her room totally naked. It only shows her from the waist up, but her death is in that scene, which means the monster caught her, ripped her apart and ate her while she was naked. This could be another reason for the off-screen kill for that character. Some people would probably object enough to a woman being torn into pieces and eaten, and being that she was naked would have only made it worse. I don't know. But if thats the reason for the off screen kill, then again, why was Amanda's death off screen? Couldn't have been the budget, she was the monsters first victim and it couldn't have been the nudity, as in Lisa's case, because Amanda wasn't naked at the time of her death. As for it being because you can't show people being torn apart on screen, I'd say, why the hell not? The guys that made this movie should watch The Dead Alive sometime! I know, I know, Dead Alive was made in 1994 and all the gore happens to be in the Unrated version. OK, so why didn't they make an unrated version of this movie? If John Carpenter can show a guy getting vertically split in half (watch John Carpenters Vampire, you'll understand) then why the hell did what WOULD have and COULD have been this movies best 2 kill scenes get cut or not filmed at all? Anyway, if your looking for a culture enriching film, don't bother. But if you wanna sit down with a pizza and six pack of beer and watch a cool, but majorly under-rated 80's horror flick, then give this one a rent of you can find it, or pull it off of a cheap site like Half.Com for 2 or 3 bucks and give it a go. Overall, I'd give a 7 out of 10.

Cellar Dweller is quite an original horror offering as well as my first Jeffrey Comb's flick. Of course I didn't know it was a Jeffrey Combs movie back then, I didn't even know who Jeffrey Combs was. But, being the huge Tales From the Crypt (if you see the movie you'll know what I'm babbling about) fan that I am, the movie had an impact on me. Cellar Dweller is a very loving tribute to the EC comics that are cherished by many a horror fan. It's also a John Carl Buechler film and he created the Ghoulies. That explains why the Cellar Dweller is simply an oversized Ghoulie (some people even say that he's cute). I spent quite some time looking for this movie and gave up. It's one of those movies you see when you're a kid watching Showtime after midnight and you never expect to see it again (especially since you don't remember the title). Then you run across it in a ghetto Blockbuster years later and you realize that this is the movie you've been looking for, and, indeed, one of your heroes is in it. Great gore effects, gratuitous chewing, and Lily Munster (Yvonne De Carlo) make Cellar Dweller a classic in my book, no matter how many people disagree. "Whenever there is imagination, I will dwell." Note for genre buffs: Look for a Troll and a Ghost Town poster on the walls of the colony. John Carl Buechler did the effects for both of those films.