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Credit: Director
Special Effects: Designed and created all special and make-up
effects
Comic Book Horror at it's finest. In a time before "Tales from the Crypt" found itself a huge audience on cable, there was John Carl Buechler's "Celler Dweller." Buechler loved the old EC Comics, and it shows. Quirky performances by Yvonne DeCarlo, Brian Robbins, Pamala Bellwood, Vince Edwards, and Deborah Mullowney are a joy to watch as the comic book style adventure unfolds. Mullowney's charcter; Whitney loves to draw horror comix, unfortunately everything she draws ends up happening, including a series of icky murders perpetrated by a giant hairy eight foot monster, who loves to devour his prey. It's wet and nasty!
Stories from the Director: Kit Dubois is actually none other than Don Mancini. He's the guy who created "Chucky." He wrote "Celler Dweller" for EMPIRE PICTURES, and I was assigned to direct it. The script that Don wrote had very little to do with the artwork and synopsis that Charles Band gave me when he said he'd wanted to make this movie. Charlie told me that he wanted to make this movie in ten days. The script that Don Mancini wrote was sort of like the "Purple Rose of Cairo" meets "John Carpenter's The Thing." Don't get me wrong, I really like the script! -- But there's no way you could shoot this movie in ten days! Charlie had hired Bob Wynn to produce these Dove Corporation Limited Pictures and these schedules weren't going to be compromised. Utilizing Don's original story and characters, and incorporateing elements of the original synopsis that Charlie had approved, I cobbled together a treatment which was fun and could be done in ten days. Everybody liked the treatment but Don. -- And I couldn't blame him. It was no longer his script. He did however rewrite the whole damn script and it was actually pretty darn good! We shot the movie in ten days, and Don decided to change his credit on the film to Kit Dubois. The film was finished and pretty well received. A lot of people seem to like the picture. It had a fun monster, cool special effects, engaging performances, and a whacky storyline. I think even Don liked it. A week after it came out on video, Don sent me a rave review from one of the trades.
"Celler Dweller"