Don Mancini created two horror villains in the fall of 1988. One, of course, was Chucky, as seen in Child’s Play. The other was Cellar Dweller, as unseen in Cellar Dweller, a dirt-cheap creature feature from Empire Pictures and Troll director John Carl Buechler. For his first credit, Mancini went under the nom de plume of Kit Du Bois — a name with more style than the movie.

Thirty years ago, horror comics artist Colin Childress (Jeffrey Combs, Re-Animator) died when a monster he drew on the page came to life. Thirty years later, Childress is idolized by cute brunette Whitney Taylor (Debrah Farentino, Storm of the Century) who attends the Throckmorton Institute for the Arts in order to create “the ultimate monster.” The school stands on the site of Childress’ former home, so Whitney is hot to use his basement studio to create her “populist tripe” (as comics are dubbed by the school’s administrator, played by Yvonne De Carlo of TV’s The Munsters).

Whitney draws what Childress did: a hairy demon with a pentagram carved into its chest. For no good reason, she draws separate stories of the monster attacking and eating her classmates, and whatever she draws actually happens. (“I told you so!” cries Dr. Wertham, from hell.) As George A. Romero proved in Creepshow, incorporating comic-book elements can be cinematic; as Buechler certainly learned, however, simply cutting from the action to a motionless panel is like applying the emergency brake to the story.

There’s a scene in which a scheming filmmaker (Pamela Bellwood, Hangar 18) folds a vintage comic book in half to hide it in her jacket, and I can imagine any fanboys cringing at the damage she does. I bring that up because that’s the most reaction Cellar Dweller can muster. The titular beast is a nifty practical effect, which was Buechler’s bread and butter, but the movie itself — all 78 slow-going minutes of it — makes his Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College look like high art. Cellar Dweller is so stupid that Whitney foils the hirsute varmint with white-out correction fluid. —Rod Lott

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