Elisha Cuthbert Goes To Hell And Back To Save Her Family In ‘The Cellar’

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Elisha Cuthbert is no stranger to the horror/mystery genre, with memorable turns in horror fare including the 2005 remake of House Of Wax and The Quiet as well as the ‘90s’ Canadian TV series Are You Afraid Of The Dark. Of course, the blond Canadian actress is best known for playing federal agent Jack Bauer’s daughter, Kim, on the acclaimed spy/action series 24, opposite Kiefer Sutherland.

She now stars in a new horror/supernatural film called The Cellar, in which she plays a woman who moves into a remote old mansion in the country with her husband and two children. When her teenage daughter (Abby Fitz) mysteriously vanishes into the lower level of their home, Keira (Cuthbert), discovers an ancient and powerful entity controlling the house, and must come face-to-face with it or risk of losing the souls of her entire family forever.

The Cellar is the brainchild of Irish writer/director Brendan Muldowney, who adapted the feature from an earlier short film he made, called The Ten Steps, which won awards on the film festival circuit. That and other films he has made in his career frequently delve into the darker side of the human experience, often mixed with Irish lore. His credits including the 2017 Tom Holland starrer The Pilgrimage and 2009’s crime drama Savage, which explored toxic masculinity and violence.

Playing Cuthbert’s husband, Brian, in The Cellar is Irish actor Eoin Macken (Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, La Brea), who finds himself also at the mercy of the mysterious dark force controlling his family’s home.

RLJE will release The Cellar in theaters and the film will be streaming on Shudder starting April 15. The horror film’s stars as well as filmmaker Muldowney spoke via Zoom prior to the film’s premiere at SXSW, eager to share it with a live audience.

Angela Dawson: You’re premiering this at SXSW. Have you, Elisha and Eoin, seen the completed film yet?

Elisha Cuthbert: Eoin is waiting to see the film at the festival, which I didn’t realize before today. I’d seen it before because I wanted to see what the film looked like before we did press but I think Eoin was smart to wait for the actual experience, so that’s going to be exciting.

Eoin Macken: It’s going to be a treat because I love seeing films at the cinema. Whenever there was an opportunity over the past two years to see a film in the cinema, I took it because I really like to see films with (an audience). I believe that this is a movie that deserves to be seen in the cinema. That, for me, is really exciting.

Dawson: There’s a lot bubbling under the surface in this movie. The plot delves into mythology and history. Brendan, you put a lot of thought and research into the screenplay.

Brendan Muldowney: Thank you. In a blurb about the film in the festival program, the writer compared it to William Hope Hodgson’s The House On The Borderland, which H.P. Lovecraft called a classic. They also compared it with the works of Nigel Kneale, a one-time BBC writer who also wrote sci-fi horrors years ago. It was really nice to see all these things referenced because I was definitely trying to do something different here in the horror genre.

Dawson: How long ago did you film this in Ireland?

Muldowney: It was November/December of 2020.

Cuthbert: Yeah, right at the height of the pandemic. We quarantined two weeks prior to filming and definitely the crew, the cast, Brendan—all of us—were in our own little bubble throughout this project. I think that kind of added to the film in a lot of ways because we all had to hunker down together and make this movie surrounded by the situation the world was in.

Dawson: Elisha, your character, Keira, tells her daughter to count to control her panic whenever she’s scared. For each of you, what’s your coping mechanism when you’re afraid?

Cuthbert: I guess it’s similar to counting, in a lot of ways. It’s breathing (and) it’s meditation. It’s maybe not counting each breath, but being thoughtful of each breath. I use it and I think most people use it as a way to control anxiety.

Dawson: And you, Brendan?

Muldowney: It’s interesting because when I was younger, I took up kayaking. In fact, I was quite good; I was on the Irish youth team where we did slalom kayaking, where you go down rapids and waterfalls. I remember, when I started, the first few times I was going down a waterfall, the butterflies and fears emerged. Obviously, I had to learn some sort of coping mechanism—breathing, of course—but also the sense of taking the leap. I’ve never forgotten that feeling so any time I’m scared, I’m able to bring my mind back to going over a waterfall. What’s tied into it is that your brain works really fast and you take in all the variable dangers and stuff, and so I still do all of that stuff anytime I’m scared. My brain works really fast and then I make a decision fast.

Cuthbert: It’s like sense memory.

Dawson: And, Eoin?

Muldowney: Nothing scares Eoin.

Macken: I’m scared of spirits. I’m not scared of things that are physical, in real life. I used to sail and swim a lot and I got caught under the water once when I was out on a boat. When that happened, for about 45 seconds, I realized that the most important thing was to remain calm and sort of figure things out. But the unknown and the uncertainty of what could be there from the spiritual or horror realm or the devil—that stuff really scares me, which is what draws me to horror films. It’s because I can’t understand how to make sense of it or control it.

Dawson: None of you are strangers to the horror genre. So, when you’re dealing with the occult, has anything unusual happened to you on set—whether in this film or another project?

Muldowney: There were a lot of flies at the place we were staying while making this. In this cottage I was in, there was this infestation of flies, which reminded me of The Amityville Horror.

Macken: It was weird, because there were no flies outside, but these flies would always appear inside and then they’d die, even though the windows were closed. I have no idea how they got in.

Cuthbert: Yeah. We were all staying in these cottages right down the road from the house you see in the film. Brendan had it the worst—maybe because he wrote the film—but we all had a bad situation with a crazy number of dead flies.

Dawson: Brendan, can you talk about casting this film?

Muldowney: I’ve known Eoin for many years, so that was a very easy conversation with him about coming onboard. It was a similar situation with Elisha. They share the same agent. When I spoke with Elisha, it was brilliant because everything Elisha said (about the vision of the film) was exactly how I saw it. I didn’t ask her to dye her hair brown, but I was thinking about it. And then she just said, “I’m thinking about changing my hair (color).” So, it was just perfect, and it worked out so well. They were wonderful to work with—the two of them—and so supportive.

Dawson: And casting the two children—Dylan Fitzmaurice Brady and Abby Fitz? In real life, Elisha, you’re a mom, so did you instinctively take a protective, maternal role towards them?

Cuthbert: I felt connected toward the kids in a lot of ways, particularly because I started acting at a young age as well. When Eoin and I met Dylan (Brady), who plays Steven, we noticed that he had such a maturity that you don’t typically see of someone who’s 11. But I saw a lot of myself in him, like having to feel confident when I walked on set and not wanted to appear to be too green, in a lot of ways.

With Abby (Fitz), who plays Ellie, I could relate to her character because of (my work) on 24, in playing Kim Bauer for so many years and being in that role (as the daughter). So, we had a lot to chat about. I definitely had a lot of great conversations with the kids.

We had a great time on set with the kids. Brendan found some terrific actors in them.

Macken: I too found myself being really protective of them, especially Dylan, who’s very mature for his age. You end up creating those bonds on set that parlay into what the characters they’re portraying onscreen. That’s nice when you have a comfortable dynamic, as we had. That ends up feeding into what you end up seeing onscreen.

Dawson: Basements or cellars are inherently creepy, aren’t they? Do you intentionally avoid them?

Macken: I was staying in a place near Albuquerque a few years ago, which had a basement. It had a handful of strange objects there too. There’s something disturbing about a basement, knowing it has all this space and there’s something about the feeling of darkness that is below your living space.

Cuthbert: I’m accustomed to basements. I grew up in Montreal, where it’s cold, and most of the city activity is underground. That’s how we got around because nobody wants to be above-ground in the elements.

Macken: It just seems that we associate dark places like cellars with places we fear, because there’s so many stories in Irish lore about an entity that’s coming to get you.

Cuthbert: Yeah, that makes total sense. But, just growing up in Canada, everyone has a basement. When you’re in high school, that’s where you go with your friends to hang out and get away from your parents. It’s kind of the cool place to hang. In my house now where I live with my family, we have our wine in the cellar, so during the pandemic it was a great place to go—just to get the wine.

Muldowney: The only basement I had was where we kept the coal (to heat the house).

Dawson: What are you working on now or have coming up?

Muldowney: I’m writing another very dark, scary horror film.

Cuthbert: I have a bank heist film coming out called Bandit, which I did with Josh Duhamel and Mel Gibson. I also had a second child a month ago so I’m in the throes of that. It’s back to mommy duty right now, and then hopefully back to work on something in a few months.

Dawson: So, you have a boy and a girl now?

Cuthbert: Yes. My daughter was born in 2017 and my boy about a month ago. So, I’ve got my set. I told my husband (retired profession hockey player Dion Phaneuf), “No more.” Two’s enough, thank you.