Review: Cellar Dweller (1988)

Directed by: John Carl Buechler
Starring: Yvonne De Carlo, Debrah Farentino, Brian Robbins
Written by: Don Mancini (as Kit Dubois)
Music by: Carl Dante
Country: United States
Available on: Blu-ray (Scream Factory)
IMDb

Special effects artist John Carl Buechler is one of the great treasures of the 1980s, and he was a busy, busy dude around the time Cellar Dweller was made, with his hands in nearly every memorable film that came out of Empire Productions, including From Beyond (1986), Dolls (1987), the Ghoulies franchise, TerrorVision (1986), and his directorial debut, Troll (1986). Despite all that damn productivity, he managed to carve out time to direct this, his second feature. Although Buechler is primarily known for his creature creations, which are absolutely, wonderfully distinct, he was also a promising talent behind the camera.

Cellar Dweller is about a magic book that enables the horrific drawings of a comic book artist (played by Jeffrey Combs in a five-minute cameo) to come to life. At least, I think that’s what happens here; the mechanics of the magic are unclear. Combs initially puts an end to the beast he’s invoked — a giant monkey-werewolf thing with a large edge-lord pentagram chest tattoo — at the cost of his own life. But a loyal fan begins raising the same hell 30 years later. The story here is itsy-bitsy, teeny-tiny, with a very limited scope and cast that mostly exists to die. The screenplay by Don Mancini (Child’s Play franchise) does the bare minimum to gather enough victims in a single location (which is, of course, Charles Band’s Italian castle, as it often was during the late ‘80s and early ‘90s), and from there it’s a bunch of uninteresting chit chat to pad time until the practical effects unfurl.

Buechler is trying his very best to keep this often-mundane flick from sinking into the doldrums by evoking gothic atmosphere and playing with lighting, zooms, and angles. Even though there’s generally not a lot happening, the nothing is largely interesting to witness. His monster is a bit silly, but it’s oh so Buechlerian, from the gooey, otherworldly sheen of its skin to the myriad mechanics that enable its very expressive visage. It’s impressive when it eventually makes its way to the screen, and there’s some well-done gore, even if most of it is bypassed via an insistence on constantly flipping back and forth between an artist illustrating the scene and its depiction in “reality.” Far too often, the carnage (and any potential nudity) is conveyed only through prominently nippled black-and-white drawings — an irritatingly cheap trick to keep the budget down.

Though it’s pretty obvious that Cellar Dweller was conceived and produced with minimal time and money, it’s enjoyable enough thanks to its cache of talented crew willing to work with limited resources and its somewhat exotic and aesthetically pleasing location. The level of creativity infused in any Buechler project is going to be significantly higher than your average horror joint, and there’s no doubt that this movie in the hands of anyone else would have been something to leave rotting in the cellar next to some shitty wine and the water-stained certificates for perfect attendance earned in second grade.

Overall rating: 6 out of 10