Ahhh, '80s monster movies. Even if you claim to hate them, deep down you really love them. Every time you look at one of the covers, or read the name, you envision some giant mutant or monster picking people off in gory and grotesque ways. Cellar Dweller is like any '80s monster movies, it has a campy story, way off acting, and loaded with effects. The problem is, there's not much of this in it.

The movie starts off with a comic artist, played by Jeffrey Combs, accidentally unleashing an evil monster upon this earth. The comic book page is destroyed and the monster disappears... but it will return again. We cut forward in time as Cellar Dweller, that comic, is being relaunched. Whitney, whose favorite comic is Cellar Dweller, gets brought on to do the art. She winds up finding a forgotten crypt which contains old, unreleased Cellar Dweller pages, as well as an arcane book of unknown origins (one that gives the monster life.) She takes these and uses them in her artwork, unbeknownst to her that it brings the creature to this world to kill. When Amanda, a rival artist, tries to expose her, she is drawn into the comic, and eaten by the monster (WHO'S NEXT!) When her seedy boss starts spying in on her work, he too is written in the comic, and killed off by the monster. Whitney ends up realizing that the creature has came to life through her drawings and she sets out to destroy them. This ends with the rest of cast catching on fire and dying. I think there were a few fake out endings, but I don't really remember them.

This movie had a lot going for it, the drawings coming to life is a great concept, and the altering of reality through the drawing (e.g. the banana peel), could have worked real well. However, it is under utilized in this, and it kinda bums me out. The effects are pretty good, the monster look pretty cool, and the face movements are awesome. It's not that intimidating though, and that kinda hurts the movie. There's a good amount of gore effect, like a sweet head rip. Unfortunately there is a lot of off screen kills. The acting is pretty good, Combs obviously being the best (he's under utilized as well.) The worst part though, is that this movie is too short for anything to get really rolling. There's too little plot or character development and there's interesting ideas that aren't fully developed or fleshed out. 6/10, for fans of the classic monster movie, or pure '80s cheese.

Cheap and trashy, this film didn't scare but thrilled me with its sense of camp. Yvonne De Carlo is such an underrated actress and is always worth taking a look at. The film is low budget and apart from De Carlo doesn't have any other well known names. The story is very simple a man writes a story about a scary monster. The monster comes to life and kills him but of course that is not the end of the monster. It waits round for more victims... This film may turn up late at night on TV, if it does turn off the lights curl up on the couch and enjoy the next hour or so. The plot cant be taken seriously so just enjoy the absurdities of it. I saw this film on VCR several years ago and cant wait for it to be released on DVD. Yvonne has made several low budget shockers over the years and this has got to be one of the best.