Having issued definitive collector’s editions of a number of high-profile horror classics of the ’80s and ’90s, Scream Factory often turns to smaller and more obscure titles to remind fans of some of the gems that once lined video store shelves. Lately they’ve been killing it with HD releases of Charles Band’s old Empire Pictures titles, several of which are appearing on home video for the first time since VHS (like their recent release of Ghost Town, for example). While both Cellar Dweller and Catacombs got a DVD release in 2013 as part of an “All Night Horror Marathon” four-film collection (the DVD debut of both movies), this new double feature Blu-ray is the first time either can be seen in high-def.
After a mostly unnecessary prologue that features Jeffrey Combs (presumably so that the movie can prominently bill a genre star as part of its cast), 1988’s Cellar Dweller settles in to a story about Whitney Taylor (Debrah Farentino), a comic book artist who moves into a house to revive the popular horror comic Cellar Dweller, which ended in the 1950s when its creator (Combs) died in a fire. What we know—and Whitney doesn’t—is that its creator died because the comic’s monstrous title character came to life and killed him. Wouldn’t you know, as soon as Whitney begins drawing Cellar Dweller again, the monster reappears and begins killing off the other artists in the house.
Looking past the drawings-come-to-life premise of the script (one that should be familiar to fans of the Tales from the Crypt episode “Korman’s Calamity”), Cellar Dweller is a really straightforward monster movie: a house full of strangers who, once alone, are attacked by a big slobbering beast. While the titular monster himself isn’t all that frightening—the HD transfer shows more of the rubber suit than ever before—it’s so much fun to see a practical monster that this reviewer could care less about the level of fakery on display. Plus, the supporting cast includes Yvonne De Carlo—Lily Munster herself—as well as Brian Robbins, who many will recognize as a cast member of the ’80s sitcom Head of the Class or from his successful directing career, but who diehard horror fans will always remember from CHUD II: Bud the Chud.
Written by Don Mancini (creator of the Child’s Play franchise) and directed by visual effects artist-turned-filmmaker John Carl Buechler (director of the original Troll and Friday the 13th Part VII), Cellar Dweller is exactly the kind of horror film that’s rarely made any more: a low-budget practical monster movie with a healthy dose of gore and the requisite amount of gratuitous nudity. It is, in short, the perfect programmer as far as ’80s horror goes. If a film like this were to be produced and released in 2015, we horror fans would be falling all over ourselves to praise it as a “throwback.” So why aren’t more people talking about Cellar Dweller, a movie that isn’t just referencing the thing but actually is the thing? Even when it’s a serviceable-but-not-shining example of this kind of movie (as it is here), it’s impossible to deny that the movie’s heart is in the right place.
If there’s a major flaw, it’s that the movie doesn’t seem to have any real rules; Mancini’s script just makes everything up as it goes along (particularly in the final act). Buechler’s direction is a happy mix of would-be stylish and crude artlessness, much the same as his work on Troll. It feels like it was shot on the quick and on the cheap—and rumor has it that it was—but that’s not a hindrance if you’ve trained yourself to watch movies like this. And at under 80 minutes, it clips along and never overstays its welcome. There’s not a whole lot more we can ask for.
Released the same year as Cellar Dweller, the disc’s second feature is Catacombs, the last movie produced by Empire Pictures before the company went under but which remained shelved for five years until going direct-to-video in 1993 (it was unavailable on disc until 2013). Laura Schaefer stars as a teacher who visits an Italian monastery where monks trapped a possessed member of their order centuries earlier. The arrival of the teacher coincides with the awakening of the demon, who gets loose in the catacombs and is out for revenge.
Of the two films included on Scream Factory’s double feature Blu-ray, Catacombs might be seen as the “better” movie because it has higher production values and less of a camp factor than Cellar Dweller. Director David Schmoeller, responsible for other genre classics like Tourist Trap, Crawlspace and the original Puppet Master, knows his way around a low-budget horror movie and manages to do a lot with a little. It’s the classier of the two offerings overall. But it’s also bloodless and generally dull—a drag to get through and a disappointing effort from the otherwise dependable Schmoeller.
If forced to make a choice between the two movies, I would take Cellar Dweller any day for its unbridled sense of fun and a willingness to embrace all the things we love about ’80s horror. It’s a movie that knows just what buttons to push in the pleasure centers of horror fans. Catacombs aims for stately but comes up dull, holding off too long to deliver the goods and not ensuring it’s worth the wait when they do arrive.
Scream Factory’s double feature Blu-ray offers both films in attractive 1.78:1-framed 1080p transfers with strong color reproduction and a decent amount of visible detail, particularly for movies that are close to 30 years old and were cheaply made to begin with. Each film gets a lossless stereo audio track that does a good job of delivering clear dialogue and a decent amount of surround dimensionality. Catacombs comes packaged with a commentary track from director Schmoeller, while Cellar Dweller gets no bonus features. Not even a trailer.
As a fan of both Scream Factory and Empire Pictures, this double feature Blu-ray is a bit of a mixed bag. It’s a worthy investment just for Cellar Dweller, though the lack of a single supplement is disappointing. The movie is enough fun to make up for it, though, and Catacombs can just be viewed as a 90-minute bonus feature. Cellar Dweller brings a giant monster to life. Catacombs is lifeless.
Cellar Dweller Score: 3.5/5, Catacombs Score: 2/5
Disc Score: 3/5
Patrick lives in Chicago, where he has been writing about film since 2004. A member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Online Film Critics Society, Patrick's writing also appears on About.com, DVDVerdict.com and fthismovie.net, the site he runs and hosts a weekly podcast.
He has been an obsessive fan of horror and genre films his entire life, watching, re-watching and studying everything from the Universal Monsters of the '30s and '40s to the modern explosion of indie horror. Some of his favorites include Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1931), Dawn of the Dead (1978), John Carpenter's The Thing and The Funhouse. He is a lover of Tobe Hooper and his favorite Halloween film is part 4. He knows how you feel about that. He has a great wife and two cool kids, who he hopes to raise as horror nerds.
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