Shudder Saturday: The Cellar (2022)

Writer-director Brendan Muldowney gave horror fans an excellent short called The Ten Steps back in 2004. He has directed a few features since then, none of which have even appeared on my radar (so I cannot say whether they were good or bad), but this film is an expansion of that effective short. Sadly, it's pretty much an object lesson in how not to take your short film and make it into a feature.

A family move into a new home, a place that seems a bit spooky, and it's not long until they're affected by the forces within it. While busy at work one evening, the parents receive a phone call from their teenage daughter, Ellie (Abby Fitz). Ellie has to head down the ten steps that go down into the cellar so her mother (Keira, played by Elisha Cuthbert) tries to help her by getting her to count each step into the darkness. Ellie just keeps going though, counting past ten and heading to some unknown place, and is later declared missing. Keira starts to investigate the house they have moved into, and she finds that there may be a mathematical formula in place to help create something seemingly impossible.

Although there are some effective moments here and there, not least of which are the Fulci-esque images in the third act, Muldowney needlessly complicates what should have stayed a beautifully simplistic bit of creepiness, crafting a theory for the unfolding events that is as laughable as it is implausible. I'm also not entirely sure that he sticks to the rules he tries to create, but maybe that is more to do with my own perception of the film. Something similar to this can be very effective (e.g. the enjoyable You Should Have Left), but Muldowney seems determined to shoot himself in the foot at every opportunity. His weak script is more obvious while being delivered by leads who aren't as strong as they could be, and there aren't enough truly memorable supporting characters to help the pacing.

As much as I like Cuthbert, she seems to be unable to pick decent horror fare to star in. Her best horror role was in House Of Wax (2005), and even that wouldn't be as enjoyable as it is if it wasn't for the absolutely stellar production design throughout. Despite her age allowing it to be possible, she doesn't feel like a good fit for a role that has her being a parent, sorry, so she's not right in the main role here. Her onscreen husband is played by Eoin Macken, who feels equally miscast, unhelped by the fact that the script gives both of our adult characters some dull-as-ditchwater jobs in the world of social media advertising. Fitz is a lot better than her older co-stars, although sadly not onscreen for too long, and Dylan Fitzmaurice Brady is fine as the youngest member of the family, Steven.

There's a decent score from Stephen McKeon, some nice cinematography by Tom Comerford, and some excellent sound design, but those are the only aspects I want to praise here. Some music, some scenes that look very nice, and the audio work. Those things aren't enough to make up for the script, the performances (which aren't bad, just not very good), or the anti-climactic scenes that have to fill up the 70 minutes or so after the best moment reworked from the original short.

I'll still maybe check out the other films directed by Muldowney,  and I would give some more time to any of his future efforts, but this seemed to be grossly misjudged from the very beginning. Sometimes a great short film should be left as it is. Expanding it can spoil what made it so great in the first place. The Cellar is proof of that.

4/10

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Netflix And Chill: Till Death (2021)

Say what you like about Megan Fox, and oh so many already have, she has often mixed interesting projects into her filmography alongside the movie roles that have her as little more than “eye candy”. It may have taken far too long for people to fully appreciate Jennifer’s Body, but there’s a chance that something like Till Death can find an audience now, especially if people are interested in a fairly straightforward thriller that is happy to throw subtlety to the wind as it depicts a woman fighting to survive an unhappy marital situation.

Fox plays Emma, who is unhappily married to Mark (Eoin Macken). Mark used to be a lawyer who helped put bad guys away, like the man (Bobby Ray, played by Callan Mulvey) who attacked Emma many years ago, but now he makes a better living by keeping bad guys out of prison. Mark may also be aware that Emma is so unhappy in their marriage that she has recently started an affair with Tom (Aml Ameen). Perhaps that is the reason for him taking them out to an isolated lake house, enjoying one lovely night together, and then blowing his brains out in the morning. With Emma handcuffed to him. It soon becomes clear that Mark has made sure Emma cannot leave, and has made sure that she cannot remove the cuffs easily. He has also invited some dangerous people to come to the lake house, promising them a very hefty reward.

The feature debut of director S. K. Dale, Till Death is a lean, enjoyable, thriller that really starts to become more entertaining once the central dilemma is fully established. Very early scenes are a bit strange and awkward, with both leads showing just how uncomfortable they are around one another in their problem-riddled marriage, but the suicide moment feels like the moment when the film is moved into another gear. Writer Jason Carvey, although without a wealth of experience in his filmography, generally keeps things tense enough to distract viewers from picking at the more obvious plot holes.

Fox is great in her role, carrying a number of scenes on her own (with a corpse attached to her). As the death and trauma actually bring her character to life, she becomes more and more committed to surviving, something that would have seemed impossible to the woman in the opening scenes. It's this performance, in line with the main theme of the movie, that makes the film work so well. Mulvey is a dangerous and menacing presence, as he so often is, and Jack Roth is good as your standard "bad man who will do bad things, but doesn't want to go as far as killing someone". Macken is easy to dislike, while Ameen is easy to like, and that is your main cast sorted.

Although the premise may be looking at someone fighting to break away from a bad marriage/husband, literally, there's also an interesting aspect to Till Death that shows male entitlement, and how so many men think they are doing well by women as long as they're not acting on par with the worst men around. There's really only one potential good guy here, and even he makes the mistake of not listening to a woman who knows more about the impending danger than he does. Which clarifies that, while others may help on occasion, the only one who can really help Emma have a proper life . . . is Emma.

Get through those difficult early scenes and you end up with a solid thriller that is an easy one to recommend.

7/10

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Siren (2010)

No, just no. Updating old myths is all well and good but it has to be done with a modicum of style and skill. Perhaps even wit. Intelligence would be nice. None of those things are present in Siren, a British horror movie that commits the cardinal sin of being completely boring for most of its runtime.

Eoin Macken and Anna Skellern are, respectively, Ken and Rachel, a couple who head out to meet Rachel's old friend, Marco (Anthony Jabre). They then jump on to the lovely boat they've been allowed the use of and enjoy some sea and sunshine. At one point, Ken and Rachel head below deck for some jolly rogering and poor old Marco finds himself taking the boat into shallow waters as he sees someone in trouble. Things start to go from bad to worse soon enough and the discovery of a female named Silka (Tereza Srbova) on the nearby island leads to some very strange events. Silka sometimes sings too. You think that Ken, Rachel and Marco would be slightly wary as they were told about the legends of the sirens by a colourful local moments before heading out to sea. But no. That bit of information just seems to have been inserted to hammer home the central idea for viewers.

The late Andrew Hull directs (and he also co-wrote the thing with Geoffrey Gunn) and as the movie has a dedication to him at the start of the end credits I don't want to really rip the movie apart and seem like a disrespectful asshole.

But it's a bad movie. Plain and simple. The acting is okay-ish (well maybe not really but it's passable) from most people involved, with the exception of Tereza Srbova who is pretty terrible (and makes everyone seem better by comparison), but the movie really doesn't do anything notable with it's main idea. Mixing in dream sequences at random certainly doesn't help, there's no tension generated because we don't really care about the characters and nothing onscreen to appease horror fans - no actual scares, no decent blood and gore (which horror fans don't always look out for but can appreciate if there's nothing else being offered), a teasing hint of eroticism that quickly fizzles out.

Anna Skellern is pleasant to look at, that's really all I can pick as a high point of a dull movie that squanders a potentially interesting premise and proves ultimately disappointing for everyone invloved (cast, crew and viewers).

3/10.

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