Cellar Dweller

Low-budget horror movie produced by Charles Band’s Empire Pictures, directed by an uninspired Buechler who seems to have phoned it in.

The entire story lingers lazily on a single – but enjoyable – metaliterary premise (a demon-beast is spawned and fed by an artist’s creative energy) whose most interesting aspect lies in the overturning of the cornerstone thesis of fantasy works such as “The Neverending Story” (1984) – in which it’s actually the lack of imagination that causes chaos and destruction.

Despite the movie’s overall lack of substance, fans nostalgic for 1980s B movies will still certainly find much to celebrate here. The opening alone, in perfect eighties style (a Sam Raimi-like montage sequence leads us into the shadowy basement of comic book artist Colin Childress, a sulking Jeffrey Combs in a self-referencing performance) fits the bill, as do the gorgeous movie posters strewn throughout the house (all Empire films, naturally), the proudly practical special effects overseen by the director himself, and the unmistakable look of the characters.

Filmed in Italy.