The Cellar

A creepy house. A mysterious wind-up gramophone with with a record of a man reciting formulas. An abacus that sends its own beads flying. A basement deeper than the soil or laws of physics can allow. The Knights Templar. Irish gateway horror The Cellar has it all.

And that’s gateway in two ways. Firstly, when Keira Woods (Elisha Cuthbert) and her husband, Brian (Eoin Macken), move their family into a rambling old house, they have no clue that it’s over a portal to Hell, reached by the titular undercroft. Second, that writer/director Brendan Muldowney has deliberately created a blood-free, gore-free, swearing-and-nudity-free entry level spookfest – something that, as he has explained, he can watch with his daughter.

Which is exactly what Keira wouldn’t be doing with her daughter, Ellie (Abby Fitz). Familial tension is the name of the game, as Ellie has no interest in being stuck in the middle of nowhere, away from all her friends. But Keira’s conviction that there’s more to her sudden disappearance may be the first time that she’s really understood teenagers. The Woods run a social media marketing firm built around manipulating influencers and vloggers, a seeming side note that builds into actual motivation in this creepy tale.

Creepy is the word, with Muldowney emphasizing tone and a gothic sensibility (much of it created by Jeroen Truijens’s textured sound design, implying spaces and creatures just beyond the sides of the frame). Not that he’s hellbent on reinventing any wheels. The story is the classic one of a parent risking the wrath of the inferno to save their child, and Mukldowney just tells that story in a way that might give kids a few nightmares without giving them grisly anatomy lessons. There are arcane symbols, a dark history to the family’s new home, and even a crazy old lady (Marie Mullen) with a warning about the house’s secrets, and an eccentric professor (Aaron Monaghan) who maps out the connections between the dark arts and multidimensional physics.

Don’t worry, it’s not all arcana that may make your kids worry that this is a lesson disguised as a scary movie. The Cellar delivers on a good, old-fashioned monster, as well as a proper glimpse through the gate to the abyss (too many such movies tease igniting l’enfer, but Muldowney definitely takes you to at least one of the circles of Hell). It may be an old spell he’s casting, but the incantation is just right.

The Cellar

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This article appears in March 18 • 2022.

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The Chronicle's first Culture Desk editor, Richard has reported on Austin's growing film production and appreciation scene for over a decade. A graduate of the universities of York, Stirling, and UT-Austin, a Rotten Tomatoes certified critic, and eight-time Best of Austin winner, he's currently at work on two books and a play.