Metacritic reviews

It’s good without being elevated or necessarily great. But it has enough scares to qualify as a decent “dark place” movie without breaking the mold.

It's a solid Friday night spookshow with solid bones and a divisive finisher — harmless horror entertainment that at least strives to be better than ordinary.

The Cellar does sag just a little in the middle, but its spooky beginning and apocalyptic denouement set it aside from the horror pack.

Aside from the one chilling scene grafted straight from The Ten Steps and its gorgeous, historic filming location, The Cellar just isn’t that deep.

A film full of thought-provoking ideas that never quite gel into anything more than another example of missed potential.

If horror flicks came in cans like fake spaghetti, this would be the kind of can-shaped wormy mess that would slowly ooze out when held upside down and shaken.

The Cellar has a cool and creepy set up but then fizzles once the answers start arriving.

The Cellar doesn't even need to be a smarter or even more faithful homage. All it needs to be is a little more of something—energetic, gross, thoughtful ... something!—to make it compelling enough to withstand comparisons to its many generic precedents.

Like Cuthbert, The Cellar oozes with potential but isn’t given enough—or doesn’t do enough—with what’s there, creating a subdued experience for viewers.

Writer-director Brendan Muldowney is better at contriving striking images of horror, filmed with umbral gloom by cinematographer Tom Comerford, than at the character and story stuff.