The Cellar - Verlorene Seelen

Love creepy house movies, could have been super spooky. It was let down by the parents "what were they thinking" or not in this case. Who leaves their children in a huge old house the day after they move in, to pitch an idea at work???? The acting by the "mother" Elisha Cuthbert was great. The father was sleepwalking through the whole movie, literally no point having him. Good concept, unfortunately, lack of budget and character development let it down.

Watching The Cellar won't kill you, I'm relatively sure about that, but it also won't scare you the least bit (but maybe in the case that you are haunted with something like a cellarphobia it may be a different matter). The movie got a few okay dark atmospheric moments, acting and production are also okay, but really, there is no real reason for the movie's existence or why you should watch this one - but The Cellar may be useful if you need some background noise while writing your next novel masterpiece or surfing thru the sales of some online shop of your choice. The "occult" in this movie is also rather just a melting pot of very superficial cliches. Verdict: meanders somewhere lost between below average and average. Exact rate: 3.5 points.

Nice plot, I let myself be tempted. Sincerely, I had a great time in front of my screen.

The film is intriguing and we want to know what's going on, it's well done. It could have been better because certain ideas could have been better exploited. Some scenes of the films, or visions are still very distressing and disturbing. Conclusion : not bad, could have been better, but it's watchable, yes.

Haunted house film. I liked what they were attempting to do. This one was a bit confounding for the seasoned viewer. High production values and nice visuals. The technological aspect is enticing, but never fleshed out. Solid acting. Some interesting ideas are unfortunately crushed by cliches. The story was a fine mysterious set-up. This sounds like faint praise but this might be a good film for young teen horror fans. It felt, at times like a good introductory film for a younger set who dig the occult. Poses interesting afterlife questions for discussions about what it all was supposed to mean. It was obviously a short film expanded to "feature" length. The padding is obvious and feels unnecessary. (caught The Ten Steps (2004), the short that was the basis for this film - recommended!) The characters act as you might expect in these films. The story heads in a direction that is fairly simple. Might be fun for fans of audiophile horror and demonic records. This movie wasn't bad at all...just filled with a lot of unused potential.

An "evil house" film that is occasionally Lovecraft-adjacent, Cellar's story has good bones but little meat, and I was more than once reminded of Mitchell & Webb's "Lazy Writers."

Add to that constant attempts at suspense that fall short because there aren't any stakes. The overbearing score, always letting you know to Be Really Scared Now Okay! Doesn't help. The first two thirds of the film felt like padding, like B-roll repurposed into something usable after the budget ran out.

But when we finally get there, it's actually a pretty good ending! And the acting is adequate, and the production values are good. They just should have left half of this on the cutting room floor.

Okay for a movie you watch with friends, fully intending to talk over half of it.