The rural township of Lancashire is the home of an army base. Recruits often perform training maneuvers in the area. One morning a soldier is found mauled to death. At first it is believed that a large animal of some kind killed the man. Detective Chief Superintendent Paddick (T.P. McKenna) begins a search for the creature.
Nearby live the Ballantyne sisters. Joyce (Flora Robson) and Ellie (Beryl Reid) were born in Lancashire and have always lived in the large mansion. The sisters are visited by Alan Marlow (John Hamill). Alan is a soldier stationed at the army base. Alan feels protective of the old ladies and checks in on them from time to time. He brings the news that another killing has taken place.
Joyce and Ellie have a big secret that they have been keeping for thirty years. When their father was in the First World War, he ended up suffering from PTSD and for years was abusive to his family. During that time, he fathered a son, Stephen, who he abused as well. Eventually Joyce and Ellie’s parents died. The job of raising Stephen (Dafydd Havard) fell on Joyce. During the Second World War Stephen decided that he wanted to join the service. Joyce, being afraid that Stephen would end up like his father, decided that she needed to take drastic measures to keep him home.
During one of her father’s bad spells, he started walling up a portion of the cellar. He had planned on walling up Stephen in it. Joyce decided to finish the wall and put Stephen in it and in so, keep him safe. Unfortunately, being locked up in the cellar for thirty years, and being abused as a child affected Stephen’s sanity. What the sisters tried to avoid, has come to pass.
When the sisters check on Stephen, they find that he has dug a hole in the outside wall and is able to come and go as he pleases. They now believe that their brother may be responsible for the murders of servicemen in the area.
“The Beast in the Cellar” was released in 1971 and was written and directed by James Kelley. It is a British horror thriller.
The plot is a variation on a theme. Supposedly, the movie was loosely based on a true story about a mother in New York who created a bricked off area in her house to hide her son from the military after he was drafted. It’s similar in nature to those other films with something locked in either the attic or the basement.
The movie looks like someone took a spooky urban legend and tried to make it a splatter film, with limited results. Many British films, even of the horror genre, have a tendency to be talky. This is one of those films. More time is spent on talking about celery than on the mysterious murders happening in the woods. The back story is told slowly and haltingly. Instead of making the movie a slow thriller, the time chewing story just makes the film a little uninteresting. The gore is haphazardly stuck in here and there among the reminiscences of two old ladies. It ended up being two genres that didn’t mix together very well.