Popular reviews

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  Review by belial_carboni ★★★ 8

  This hit the spot. From the director of Night of the Demons comes a magical dose of nostalgia induced terror. I love finding these late 80s films that feel like they were birthed straight out of a mom and pops video store. The made for TV vibes gave me a Tales from the Crypt feel and the kids in peril themes reminded of Grandma's House or maybe the Curse. Just a lot more tame and dialed down. Throw in some squealing 80s guitar, low budget sets and practical FX and it felt like something I would watch at a sleepover circa 1994!

  A family moves into an old house situated on top of an old Indian burial ground. Better yet…

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  Review by FakeVoorhees ★★★

  Solid PG-13 monster movie from the director of Night of the Demons and Witchboard. Kevin Tenney movies are better when they go wild though and this one hold most of the monster action until the end.

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  Review by Tony the Terror 666 ★★½

  There’s just something about movies set in the desert that I don’t like. Maybe it’s the over abundance of brightness on the screen. I recently mentioned in another review that it was because of too much sun, but I think it’s just the brightness in general. The sky and the sand are the opposite of horror aesthetic and then everything and everyone else just looks like some old tanned leather.

  Definitely not my favorite Tenney movie and after a ridiculously melodramatic narrated prologue (and even worse epilogue) we get a pretty tame movie where nothing much happens until the last 20 minutes when the shit suddenly dials it up to 10 and features a truly kickass monster…from the cellar who knew!

  The Vinegar Syndrome release looks fantastic as always and it really is worth watching for those monster effects. I may not watch it again, but I’m not mad that I got it.

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  Review by Zay ★★★½

  "Don't be a wussy! What's that dad? It's a combination of wimp and pu...I'll tell ya when you're older"

  I enjoy Kevin Tenney's films. Night of the Demons being one of my all time faves. They all have a cheesy, sleazy quality to them that's charming as hell.

  This one has a typical setup with a kid seeing a monster and telling everyone about it only for them all to not believe him until its too late. They only show the creature in quick glimpses most of the film which worked well as the creature was kinda silly looking. Looks like a huge mutated dog/rat/gargoyle hybrid with sharp teeth and slimy grayish skin.

  Patrick Kilpatrick's performance as the dad is…

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  Review by The Great Owl ★★★★

  Home inspections are expensive up front, but they can often save prospective buyers a lot of money. I am glad that such inspections are a part of required due diligence in my area, since I was able to find out beforehand about various issues in my current townhouse (aged air conditioner, small cracks in upstairs bathroom tile due to settling foundation, and such) before deciding to purchase it years ago.

  Had Mance Cashen and his pregnant wife, played respectively by Patrick Kilpatrick and Suzanne Savoy, enlisted in the services of a home inspector before buying their remote Texas farmhouse, they would likely have been made aware beforehand of the home's minor red flags, like the horrific Native American curse on…

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  Review by Andrew Roby ★★★ 2

  Insane editing. Scenes randomly end. Insane dad. Can't hear his son yelling in the cellar but can hear a dude yelling from across his yard. No better way to bond with you son than punching each other in the face. Crows carrying around fingers. Double barrel shotgun that shoots 10+ rounds with no reloading. Bossy dad. Overacting dad. Dad that ignores warnings but is scared at the same time. Macho Dad Mance Cashen. Puddles of goop. Don't go near them though. You'll get pulled in by the monster. What's the monster? A creation made by a Comanche in order to kill the white men on his land. Fuck. Yes.

  Willys dad gave it his all in this. Watching his acting…

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  Review by Gary K ★★½

  Director's Cut

  Kevin Tenney did manage to make chicken salad out of chicken shit. This is an average creature feature with a pretty cool looking beastie and zippy, monster action.

  A boy discovers a monster in his cellar and no one believes him, so he has to take it on himself. Patrick Kilpatrick plays the dad and you can see why he would play mostly serial killers in all his other roles. He's barely restrained, unhinged menace here.

  I never saw the original cut, but this is a streamlined, straight ahead affair and looks great on the new Vinegar Syndrome disc.

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  Review by Tyler MacGregor ★½

  It has an interesting practical creature design, but it's very liberally shown off right from the start, spoiling any kind of mystery or suspense. The interactions between the father and son are cute, until he becomes a horrible irredeemable psychopath not too dissimilar to something like Jack Torrance in The Shining, except they still want you to like him after sinking to that point. Throw in an unnecessary narration, an obnoxious music score and choppy editing obscuring most of the real action and this gets a no from me.

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  Review by Justin LaLiberty ★★½ 1

  a tepid Native American creature feature from Night of the Demons director Kevin Tenney whose protagonist is a whiny kid named Willy (played by Chris Miller, the future voice of Kowalski the penguin in Madagascar) who is deemed a "wussy" by his dad and hangs out with a guy who likes to water cars to ward off evil or some such shit - mostly a mess outside of some solid monster effects in the last act

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  Review by Ⓢⓒⓘ-Ⓕⓘ Ⓦⓐⓢⓐⓑⓘ🍥 ★

  Creature in the cellar of a house that was built on Native American soil, because sure, why not?

  ⚠️Too many negatives:
  🐸The creature is revealed too early; no surprises.
  🎤Unnecessary narration pasted over the start and end sequences (because we're too stupid to visually see what's going on?).
  🎵Includes rock music inserts that completely kill off any potential moments of tension.
  👹The Native American bit felt like a cheap story addition, as it doesn't really contribute to the existence of the creature.
  👻It's not scary, even by 80s standards; this would not have scared me as a kid.
  🍔Everything is super obvious to everyone except the poorly cast meat-headed man-child father played dime-a-dozen villain, Patrick Kilpatrick.

  Had some potentially good ideas, but the stitched together editing and bad compositional choices killed off all the horror build up. Suzanne Savoy and Danny Wren were the only decent cast members, but even their performances couldn't save this dreck. Complete waste of time.

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  Review by Dave Jackson ★★★★

  Kevin Tenney can go either way. He's made amazing shit, he's made mediocre shit. The Cellar thankfully falls in the amazing shit category (well, the director's cut on the Vinegar Syndrome release does at least). This film is bonkers. It's basically a PG-13 kids horror, but it has some utterly disgusting stuff in it. Animals are melted into skeletons. People constantly lick slime from their fingers as a bizarre icky taste-test. Someone claims a baby is going to get "stripped to the bone". The film's monster is basically a big slimy dog. Everything is relentlessly gross, brimming with scorpions and sludge. It's also deeply weird. There is a very, very odd vibe running through it. Patrick Kilpatrick is great and…

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  Review by Michelle (Guyver Spawn) ★★★½ 2

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  Daily Horror Hunt #38 August 2021 3/31
  Watch a movie released by Vinegar Syndrome.

  The Cellar is a movie that I remember hearing about growing up, but I never saw it until now. I bought the Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome's website a while back, and I haven't had the time to watch it. I end up watching the director's cut because it seems like the best choice. I'm glad that I watched it because I enjoyed it. The Cellar is a fun creature feature in my opinion. I really like the atmosphere and the special effects. For a low-budget movie, the practical effects look excellent. The design for the monster that lives under the basement is pretty neat looking. Too…