The Cellar Door
The Cellar Door
| 01 June 2007 (USA)
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Having developed an uncontrollable obsession with the beautiful young Rudy (Michelle Tomlinson), crazed serial killer Herman (James DuMont) kidnaps her and locks her in a cage in his basement. The only way for Rudy to survive this nightmare is to outsmart her psychopathic tormentor. But Herman has experience on his side: He's entrapped and tortured other women before, playing sick and twisted mind games with his frightened victims.

Reviews
Executscan

Expected more

Micransix

Crappy film

Bereamic

Awesome Movie

Kimball

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

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gary-444

This is the Directorial debut for Matt Zettell, and Christopher Nelson's first screenplay- and it shows. There is a rich and honourable tradition of " captured women at the mercy of depraved men", but this does nothing to add to it. The premise is fine, and familiar. A loner pervert abducts young women for lewd purposes. But crucially, beyond that, Zettell loses his way.It isn't a sexploitation movie. There is no overt sexual violence and hardly any nudity, so voyeurs will be disappointed. This isn't a standard "slash & splash" movie, the body count is too low. Nor is it a psychological thriller, the Direction and writing isn't good enough. The shame is that the two lead actors, abductor Herman, (James Dumont(, and abductee , Rudy, (Michelle Tomlinson), do a decent job with what they have, which isn't very much.There are some decent scenes, the pre opening credits chase across a deserted storm drain is solid, the supermarket scenes where Herman buys self consciously for his captive well observed if under exploited, and the dispatch of some pesky Jehovas witnesses quite amusing. But overall it is a long 85 minutes.The film's flaw is that Zettell does not know what to do with the story. The characterisation is weak, so we don't really bond with any of the characters. Herman's creepy and perverted desires are not played on enough, and the violence requires a level of suspension of disbelief in the final act which is laughable. This film really is not very good.

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Claudio Carvalho

In California, the psychopath Herman (James DuMont) stalks the young Rudy (Michelle Tomlinson) and her mate Christa (Heather Sconyers) along a day and a night and finally he chooses Rudy to be his next victim. He breaks in their house and uses ether to kidnap Rudy, bringing her to the basement of his house. When she awakes, she discovers that she is imprisoned in a wooden cage in a cellar and subjected to sick games of the deranged Herman. Rudy decides to play the game looking for a chance to escape from Herman's claw.I do not know how many times I have seen the storyline of "The Cellar Door"; maybe the original version of this theme (a man that abducts a woman for his own pleasure) is William Wyler's masterpiece "The Collector", which has become extremely violent and sadistic as years go by. I recall recently watching at least the franchise "Saw", "Captivity", "Broken" and "Sportkill" that are rip-off of the classic storyline. However, I liked "The Cellar Door" because the writer Christopher Nelson and the director Matt Zettell were able to make an extremely low-budget theatrical movie supported by a solid screenplay and mostly by top-notch performances of the unknown James DuMont and Michelle Tomlinson. Their mouse-and-cat game is great and in the end it was worthwhile watching this simple but effective film that works perfectly on DVD. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "O Porão" ("The Cellar")

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dschmeding

I admit I kind of liked Broken for its atmosphere and cold feeling although it was going pretty much nowhere. I don't know why this movie is called Broken 2... except for the crazy guy kidnaps woman they don't have so much in common. This time the crazy guy is a pathetic loser who puts women in his cellar and cages them to have smalltalk with them and collect their feces. Obviously the movie tries to be smart and psychological with the caged woman and crazy guy interacting but at no point its getting any clear whats behind crazy guy Herman's acting. The script is once again a mess and covers stupidity on all levels... stupid victims running around with weapons just to get captured again after leaving them behind, 60 Minutes of pseudo-psychological boredom and then when the going gets tough the doorbell rings, the captive is kept in a cage for weeks and still got shiny bright white teeth... and the ending, oh my god.. crap ending, even crappier music. Its like the fourth movie in a row I saw that doesn't have a proper ending. The acting was OK but thats about it. This movie has no atmosphere, no suspense, no gore and a script like one big hole. Avoid.

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dgos17

This is a really wonderfully acted and directed film. Lots of intensity keeps you interested the entire film. I highly recommend this film. Great story. Superb acting. Wonderful horror/thriller. Nice strong female characters for a change. Pretty creepy too. Makes you think twice about the average guy walking the streets. The Horror genre needs more strong women like this film portrays. I produce the horror film festival Shriekfest and this film took audience choice award, Best Acting Performance Award, and the Pretty/Scary award for strong representations of women in horror! Gritty fun! Go check it out. The chocolate cake scene is not to be missed.

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