Main cast: Debrah Mullowney (Whitney Taylor), Brian Robbins (Phillip Lemley), Vince Edwards (Norman Meshelski), Cheryl-Ann Wilson (Lisa), Jeffrey Combs (Colin Childress), Pamela Bellwood (Amanda), and Yvonne De Carlo (Mrs Briggs)
Director: John Carl Buechler
In the grand tradition of ’80s horror flicks that balance gore with an undeniable charm, Cellar Dweller emerged in 1989 as a lesser known but delightfully bizarre addition to the genre. Directed by John Carl Buechler, a practical effects maestro, this movie seeks to bring to life the chilling concept of an artist’s creation turning on its maker.
However, don’t be fooled by the movie poster promising Jeffrey Combs in full creepy-cool mode. He plays Colin Childress, the artist whose doodle-demon starts all this nonsense, for all of five minutes. It’s basically a glorified cameo, but if you’ve seen Re-Animator, you already know that anything with Mr Combs, however brief, is bound to be, well, memorable.
Our real story begins a few decades later in the era of teased hair and shoulder pads. Enter Whitney Taylor, a young comic artist who idolizes the late Colin Childress and jumps at the chance to take up residence in his former home, which is now some sort of bohemian arts institute run by—yes, you read that right—Yvonne De Carlo, aka Lily Munster. Whitney is soon sharing her new digs with a cadre of “artists” who embody every stereotype imaginable: tortured poets wailing in the night, theatrical mime enthusiasts performing tragic pantomimes for an audience of none, and the obligatory detective novelist brooding in the corner. It’s like an art commune fever dream, if that commune existed in a mall somewhere in the ’80s.
Naturally, Whitney’s decision to dabble in her idol’s dark arts (literally) leads to a series of grisly murders around the institute. The poor girl seems blissfully unaware that creating monsters from one’s subconscious rarely ends well, especially in horror. Before long, she’s released the same ravenous creature that led to the death of her idol. But here’s where things start feeling formulaic, because this setup is about as original as a haunted house attraction. Anyone familiar with the “artist-unleashes-monster” trope will know where this is heading from the first frame.
But even the most well-worn formula could be forgiven if Cellar Dweller actually followed its own internal logic. Alas, the monster’s powers and weaknesses seem to shift with the wind, leaving you wondering if even the filmmakers were sure what kind of menace they were unleashing. The beast begins as a nightmarish figure haunting Colin’s sketches, but by the end feels more like a glorified pet raccoon—menacing one moment, utterly confused the next.
Ah, but that monster! Though it’s technically supposed to be terrifying, it’s just too darn dorky to instill any real fear. The creature shuffles around with the clumsy enthusiasm of a child playing dress-up. And when it chews on a dismembered arm or a leg, it does so with the gleeful abandon of a kid with a tub of cookie dough. By the end, you can’t help but root for this adorable carnivorous teddy bear, as it seems to be the only character really enjoying itself in this whole ordeal.
Whitney, meanwhile, is our “heroine” in the loosest sense of the word. The actress does a passable job, but the character herself is, well, not exactly the sharpest pencil in the box. Her persistent obliviousness stretches credulity to a breaking point, and if I’m being honest, you may find yourself hoping she meets the creature sooner rather than later. And as for the horror royalty here—Mr Combs and Ms De Carlo—you can’t help but feel shortchanged. Neither sticks around long enough to make a lasting impact, leaving you with a serious case of what might have been.
In the end, Cellar Dweller is like a horror flick caught between childhood nostalgia and adult horror. The gore is there, but it’s so mild it feels more suited to a Saturday morning cartoon than a true horror movie. Still, there’s an undeniable charm to this movie that makes it hard to dislike, even when it can’t decide if it wants to be PG or R-rated. For all its faults, it’s the monster who steals the show and if you’re like me, you’ll be cheering it on, happy to leave the actual humans to their own hapless fates.
