★★★1/2 out of ★★★★★
The Cellar, which debuted at SXSW 2022, feels on the surface like a fairly conventional haunted house film, but it produces some fairly clever takes on the traditional model. A physicist uses an arcane equation to save his dying son but ends up damning himself and dooming the family that has just moved into the mansion in which he disappeared.
🤡🤡.5 out of 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡 Writing is a struggle. Too much exposition gives the appearance of being a churlish jerk who sucks all of the oxygen out of a room. While too little exposition has the air of being aloof, uncaring, and unwilling to let the audience in on the scares. Weirdly, Haunt vacillates between both words, but manages to tell this spooky story in the most ineffective way possible.
★★.5 out of ★★★★★ As we’ve all come to learn in the horror game, a haunted house, no matter how haunted, does not a movie make. For that matter, a bunch of spooky trappings within a haunted house, also does not a movie make.
★★ out of ★★★★★
Now with 30 percent less jump scares!
★★★ out of ★★★★★
It’s not a real séance until someone gets possessed.
★★ out of ★★★★★
Ok…I think it’s time for you guys to leave.
★★ out of ★★★★★
When grandmas go bad.
