Everything is properly in place in "The Cellar," which makes it satisfying and underwhelming at the same time. General creepiness, check; interesting notions, check; bloody red MacGuffins, check; valiant heroine, innocent victims, and remorseless evil, check check check. On its merits it could rate a point or two higher than what I've rated it here, but at the end of the day we're spoiled for horror movies, and this one needs a little more edge to stand out in the crowd. It's competent, but to what end?

Points up for gleefully nonsensical formulae - this is an Evil Math story, if you follow the Nutty Plot Devices too carefully (not recommended). The Evil Math summons the demon, you see, because the Scary Formula is left unfinished, but if you count upward from - you know, never mind. It reminds me of a day in high school when my friend Michael proved, via mathematical induction and the presence of two other Michaels in class, that everyone in the world was named Michael. That's not how mathematical induction works, but it was entertaining at the time, and I feel pretty much the same about the Evil Math here. It justifies the creepy counting that comes up a few times along the way, with especially nice effect the first time it happens. That part gets a pass.

Points down for the usual haunted house movie trappings: doors that open ominously onto abandoned rooms filled with Demonic Bric-a-Brac, kids who don't mention the terrifying events they've seen, a medley of engravings of our Demon of Choice found by Googling, experts at the local university who just happen to recognize this and that arcane inscription, random use of foreboding Hebrew letters. "The Cellar" is all about the numbers, but it's a little too _by_ the numbers to ace its landing. The actors do well and make the material feel pressing, the scares arrive about when they should, and the film fits easily into the comforting Scary Movie space that it's designed to fill.

**Classic horror formula brought back to haunt our modern times**

I do feel this movie has a potential to one day become a classic of it's own. A good horror movie takes the things that plague the everyday lives of it's contemporary audience and exposes their dark side, but without spelling things out. Resulting in the audience feeling very uneasy, but not knowing exactly why. All classic horror movies pull that off and this one does an equally good job targeting a modern audience with modern issues.

Like with all horror movies that apply this formula (and all the good ones ALWAYS do) this movie therefore relies on building things up in the first act and having the audience relate to the characters and their relatable everyday issues and interpersonal conflicts. Which might seem dull (especially for today's audience with its notoriously short attention span) but it's an absolutely crucial and necessary build up for the 3rd act in which the *bleep* will finally hit the fan.

So while the everyday problems of an average modern family might seem boring to sit through and might seem like they have nothing to do with the scary monster that will figuratively and/or literally, but inevitably show up at the end, it in reality has EVERYTHING to do with it and actually any monster is merely the personification of the dark aspects of the issues that are addressed in the first act.

Also, like so many horror movies nowadays, this movie includes some references to the occult. But unlike in many other horror movies, these occult aspects are not in any way glorified, yet are portrayed fairly accurately, though of course taken with a slight artistic license. Which I think is what you would want. I mean after all and assuming black magic is real, you wouldn't want your audience accidentally summoning the dark forces after casually reciting some dialogue from the latest haunted house movie :-)