Director: John Carl Buechler
Writer:Don Mancini
CAST---
Yvonne De Carlo ...  Mrs. Briggs
Debrah Farentino ...  Whitney Taylor
Brian Robbins ...  Phillip Lemley
Pamela Bellwood ...  Amanda
Miranda Wilson ... Lisa (as Cheryl Ann Wilson)
Vince Edwards ...  Norman Meshelski
Jeffrey Combs ...  Colin Childress
Floyd Levine ...  Taxi driver
Michael Deak ...  The Creature

Runtime: 77 min

This one may have gotten lost in the helter skelter days of the late-eighties when every other movie was
horror or sci-fi, but I am sure you have probably heard of this one. Beyond the Suess-ian title, this film,
directed by FX make-up guru John Carl Buechler (TROLL/ FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE NEW BLOOD) and
written by Don Mancini (who wrote all 5 Chucky movies) is a classic monster movie that should not be
missed.
The film begins with everyone's favorite re-animator Jeffrey Combs as a cartoonist that unleashes a
demon through his drawings, which leads to his fiery demise as well as the demon's (or so we think). 30
years later his home is a sort of halfway house for art students, each with their own projects going on.
Whitney Taylor shows up to continue Colin Childress's (Combs) work and plans to resurrect the Cellar
Dweller comics. What she doesn't realize is that she is literally resurrecting the demon and feeding it
victims the further along she gets with the new issue. When she realizes that the demon is lose in the
house and has just about devoured everyone, it may be too late to erase it out of existence.
Okay, first thing's first. The Cellar Dweller is awesome, and I mean AWESOME! Buechler outdoes
himself with the Dweller's creation. Picture an eight-foot tall carnivorous troll/ghoulie mix and you get the
idea. The best part about this movie was watching this great monster, which looks scarily real in some
shots, eat the flesh right off of the bones of the pretentious art students. I'd have to say the Dweller
ranks right up there on my top ten favorite monsters list.
Secondly, there is a great cast at work here. Granted Jeffrey Combs is only in it for like five minutes, but
he's awesome in it. Have you guys ever seen THE 4400? That show is amazing, but I digress. This film
also features one of the last performances from every horror fan's favorite stay-at-home mom Lily
Munster. That's right, the one and the only Yvonne De Carlo is in this one, and she plays the dean or
the principal or the house mother of the artist house. She gets a couple pf juicy scenes here and it did
my heart good to see her again, even if she did look a lot older and a lot more filled out. Plus Brian
Robbins is in this! He was in the sitcom "HEAD OF THE CLASS", which I still remember fondly, and he
also starred in "CHUD 2" which I also enjoyed. However, he went on to direct "NORBIT", which I do not
regard fondly in the least.
All in all, this is just a kick ass movie! The whole imagination-come-to-life-to-wreak-havoc plot has been
done before (most notably in a TALES FROM THE CRYPT episode, I believe), but it's hard to beat the
monster work on this one and the wonderfully gruesome way that the Dweller's victims are picked clean.
This one will be extremely hard to find, but I just saw it on the Chiller Channel, so it's out there
somewhere. If you're a monster fan and want to see bloody great fx in action then I highly recommend
this gory little goodie

                                                                                                              - Jose Prendes
CELLAR DWELLER  (1988)
Cellar Deweller (1988)
Seen it too? Let us know what you thought.

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