The Cellar (2024)

A young girl wakes up imprisoned underground with amnesia. She must escape, unravel the mystery behind her captivity, and confront her personal struggles. A suspenseful tale of survival, truth, and inner turmoil unfolds.

This film puts us directly in the shoes of our protagonist, Abigail (Megan Adara), who wakes to find herself in a cold, dank concrete room with chains on the wall and a cast iron door. She has almost complete amnesia with no context of her surroundings or why she’s there.

As Abigail makes a bid for freedom through a labyrinth of never-ending corridors and chambers, she recalls vague memories of attending a support group in a church. Along her journey she discovers bodies of figures lurking in those visions. It’s clear her captive wants to give her a chance to earn freedom, but why and how?

Director Jamie Langlands does well to make the audience feel a part of this story, dropping is straight into the middle of the plot with an almost sole focus on our lead through first person POV camera work. The claustrophobic feel is intensified in the same way, ensuring the story remains self-contained.

Megan Adara turns a great performance, effortlessly carrying the emotional weight of this film, elevating fear and anxiety levels. Neil James is a fun watch as the ominous Gabriel. His portrayal brings added dread and mystery to the story.

It’s clear there are influences from renowned psychological horrors and even video games. The choices made as our lead navigates through the seemingly never-ending trove of underground corridors speaks to this, and often at times it feels we as an audience should be helping her unlock a puzzle leading to the next room and guide her to the exit.

This independent horror film is ambitious but shows creativity and promise. The setting is well thought out and creates an immersive and expansive feel that is hard to achieve with limited resources. Considering this is the first feature from Langlands, it’s well executed and gives us a glimpse of what horrors could lurk round the corner.

Fans of slow burn, unsettling psychological filmmaking with occult undertones should check out The Cellar.

Dull, poorly made, and slow
If you want a movie like this to work you have to make the tension high, and in order for that to be possible you have to have characters to identify and sympathize with. This movie does not, so it cannot build genuine tension. It juxtaposes a few different things happening at once, but fails to build anyone to the point where you care about them. Add to that the LONG stretches of silence (which are not tense, just dull) and the poor production quality and you get a three out of ten, and I might be overly generous there.