Cellar Door Review | A Twisty Thriller More Unsettling Than Horrifying

There’s so much to say about Cellar Door, but there’s more that cannot be said. Director Vaughn Stein (Terminal) creates a provocative film with a big twist that cuts deep and to the bone, while it lacks the spunk and high quality of other bold outings of this ilk, such as Cuckoo, Longlegs, and Blink Twice. Cellar Door takes its time and keeps the lid shut on its mystery for most of this journey, making the audience question and guess about what’s truly taking place. It edges us well enough that we can’t help but stay invested to see how the events ultimately unravel.

Written by Sam Scott and Lori Evans Taylor (Bed Rest, Final Destination: Bloodlines), the film chronicles the plight of a city-dwelling couple, Sera and John (Jordana Brewster and Scott Speedman), who relocate to the Portland suburbs. A mysterious man named Emmett (Laurence Fishburne) has a knack for pairing the right property with the right people, and soon enough, he decides to gift the couple the lavish home of their dreams.

There’s just one catch: They can never open the cellar door. Well, at some point, that becomes too tempting to pass up, generating intrigue and suspense and a kind of will they/won’t they big tease that tends to overstay its welcome yet ultimately satisfies with a devastating twist in the third act. Led by the fiery performances of Brewster and Speedman, Cellar Door is an engaging romp that’s more psychological than supernatural.

The Door Is Not Always Open

Cellar Door begins as Sera and John prep a nursery for their unborn child. They’ve wanted a baby for some time and welcome the on-the-go pivot of being a successful mathematics professor (Sera) and realtor (John), respectively. Then Sera suffers a miscarriage and life suddenly changes in an instant. Perhaps a move to the ‘burbs is the answer. Sera and John can begin again and rebuild. Mystery man Emmett is happy to assist. Laurence Fishburne has turned in countless believable performances in unbelievable settings — from The Matrix films to the John Wick franchise — and nails his role here as a seemingly compassionate and caring soul.

But we immediately know there’s something more to Emmett than what is being revealed and his one caveat in offering Sera and John his palatial home — don’t you dare open that cellar door — is just plain odd. But it immediately establishes an effective mystery that becomes a strong enough throughline for the film. Have patience. This movie is on a slow-boil, yet when the bigger reveals do happen, eventually they all coalesce to create something so differently haunting than the audience may have imagined.

The big tease is that something supernatural lurks beyond the cellar doors outside the house, which are featured often enough to fuel some great suspense. Cue: haunting music crescendos. What’s hidden beneath those cellar doors remains hidden for a time but the secrets of our main characters… not so much. They are slowly revealed, leading up to a few inventive plot twists, mostly revolving around John, who becomes more fixated with the mystery underneath the house.

Something Wicked Lurks Inside

One of the best tonal approaches director Vaughn Stein takes with the screenwriters’ material is to make it so very Faustian by way of Edgar Allan Poe. Drawing inspirations from such classic works such as “The Tell-Tale Heart” and perhaps Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca or Paul Feig’s A Simple Favor, the filmmaker presents a bold question: What deal might you make with the “devil” to have your dreams come true?

Emmett is a good stand-in for the Big D, but he’s not entirely all that sinister. A gentle provocateur for sure, but there’s far more to like about his circular talk than not. It’s only a matter of time before several neighbors arrive chatting about the “person who used to live in the house.” When John suddenly finds himself in a business mess, it leaks into his personal life, and fuels his burning desire to break the couple’s agreement with Emmett.

The Film’s Problems Subside with a Great Ending

John’s work angst is good place for the writers to pivot the trajectory of the film and toss in a gaggle of complex scenarios, work colleagues, and events from John’s past to keep this thriller burning. To his credit, Scott Speedman is believable here, but the film only gives the character so much range and so much of that is what we’ve already experienced from his previous roles, such as Nick Marsh from Grey’s Anatomy. Jordana Brewster fairs a bit better, and the writers work wonders with a seemingly by-the-book description as math teacher. (Sera’s smarts come in handy later.) Everything has a purpose in this film, and that’s yet another fine element of Cellar Door. Nothing is extraneous. It’s just that sometimes, it feels time-consuming.

And that’s okay. We’ve had our fair share of stories this year that didn’t quite hit their marks, no matter how big the hype was — from Joker: Folie à Deux and Borderlands to AfrAId. In Cellar Door, the wait is worth it. Watch for how well the filmmaker introduces the possibility of a brighter future for our couple yet digs the creative knife in just enough to up the stakes and make them question everything about their marriage. Or, how well this enormous house becomes a significant and ominous character itself. And what (brief) fun it is in watching John cave in and attempt to sidestep those frightful cellar doors and find another way to get inside the chamber beneath it.

There’s even great use of B players, whose place in the film suddenly matters more than we realize — we’re looking at you, Chris Conner and Katie O’Grady. Cellar Door ultimately shows us that in the basements of our own minds, the most frightening things can dwell; things we’re willing to keep locked up for good in order to assure a better future. This is one heck of a morality tale despite all its flaws. Cellar Door, from Lionsgate, hits theaters and will be available On Demand November 1.