Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

This movie makes me want to track down the people who made it and make them watch their own movie. Virtually everything about this movie is terrible. The noise, I mean music, you hear at the beginning of the movie is just the beginning of your suffering if you continue to watch the movie. The music isn't even music, it's just fingers scratching a chalkboard. The acting is lousy. Oliver Reed, and Gig Young must have been desperate for money when they made this garbage. It fits Carol Lynley because she never could act.The story is beyond absurd. H.P. Lovecraft must be spinning in his grave. Just read the story because if you are a fan of HP Lovecraft, you will not be happy seeing what they have done with "The Shuttered Room." The setting for the story is all wrong. It's based in the sixties but they still act like it's the eighteen hundreds.I really resent having to give this movie one star.

As far as Lovecraftian adaptations go, this one isn't bad at all and is a lot better and more subtle than trash like THE DUNWICH HORROR, thanks to the literate script and engaging performances from a varied cast. Filmed in England but set in New England, the scenery is barren but beautiful and good use is made of these locations to convey a loneliness and isolation. While it's not a perfect film (the ending is FAR from perfect), it is certainly more adept at achieving the actual aims of Lovecraft in terms of a creepy, brooding atmosphere than many other so-called adaptations have been.The acting is pretty much great, especially from the two male leads. Gig Young is the ageing, imported American actor who was on the way out but still impresses, while Oliver Reed was the up-and-coming actor who also impresses in his turn as a brooding, rebellious youth with one thing on his mind. Carol Lynley is fine as the typically pretty blonde girl caught up in all the chaos, and Flora Robson puts in a fun frumpy turn. It's also nice to see old faces like Charles Lloyd Pack popping up in a film mainly full of youths.Funnily enough, the actual creature in the room isn't where most of the horror comes from in this film. As a sideline, the plot introduces a gang of male youths who view Lynley as a sexual object and will do anything to get her. Much of the film consists of her narrowly escaping from these men (primarily Reed) before she is finally trapped and cornered and turns the table on them, with predictably fatal results. The action scenes are kind of amusing in an unintentional way as Young uses special karate moves on the bad guys.This film's main flaw is that while it successfully builds up a lot of suspense as it goes along, the payoff is a big disappointment. The thing in the shuttered room doesn't even turn out to be a monster or a mutant, just a normal human being - what a cheat! There are a couple of mildly gory death scenes thrown in there but this film's main obsession is the dark sexual undercurrent. This makes it an interesting, well-shot, well-acted, and watchable little film which deserves to be seen by many more horror fans than it has been, as it seems to have somewhat sunk into obscurity these days.

In the 1970 British film "The Beast in the Cellar," two unusual sisters, played by Dame Flora Robson and Beryl Reid, are dismayed when the mysterious whatzit that they have long kept imprisoned in their basement manages to escape and terrorize the countryside. But as it turns out, this wasn't the first time Dame Flora had done something of this nature on screen. Her previous film, 1967's "The Shuttered Room," another letdown of a horror outing from the U.K., has her playing a character named Aunt Agatha, who, for almost 20 years, has been protecting a mysterious whatzit in the attic of an abandoned mill house. Unfortunately, this creature, like the one in the 1970 film, turns out to be more than capable of committing murderous rampages when approached....In the 1967 film, a very handsome couple, Mike and Susannah Kelton, comes to lonely Dunwich Island, off the New England coast, where Susannah was raised until the age of 4, when she was sent away. They have come to claim the now supposedly empty mill house where Susannah spent her early youth, but encounter only unwelcome comments from the townsfolk, not so subtle threats from the local gang of toughs led by Oliver Reed, and warnings of a curse from Aunt Agatha. And ultimately, the discovery of the corpse of a slain young woman in the mill house tips Susannah off that the Whately family curse just might be in full force indeed....Before explaining just why I found "The Shuttered Room" such a disappointment, let me endeavor to state what I liked about it. I mentioned that the Keltons are a handsome couple, and as played by Gig Young (54 here, and one film away from winning his Oscar for "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?") and Carol Lynley (25 here, and in her first film since Otto Preminger's "Bunny Lake Is Missing"), they certainly are that; indeed, Lynley is quite astonishingly beautiful here. The acting jobs turned in by the four leads are exceptionally good and the look of the film is marvelous. DOP Kenneth Hodges has done a stunning job of lensing this picture, and the island scenery is often a treat for the eyes. (Wherever was this thing shot, anyway?) Director David Greene has also turned in some sterling work here, and his utilization of unusual camera angles, imaginative camera setups and thoughtful camera movements is most welcome. The picture is extremely atmospheric, and must have been wonderful to see back when on the big screen. That atmosphere is hugely abetted by the outre, jazzish soundtrack provided by Basil Kirchin; strange as it is, it yet works splendidly. In all, the picture is marvelous for its first 9/10, and the viewer is kept consistently on edge, and wondering just what the heck is lurking in that attic....And then comes the denouement. As in "The Beast in the Cellar," which film also withheld a glimpse of the mysterious rampager till the very end, only dishing out occasional POV shots from its eyes, here, the ultimate revelation as to the creature's identity is sorely disappointing. The "Maltin Movie Guide" is being generous when it calls this disclosure "tame," and most viewers, I have a feeling, will be incredulous that this thing could possibly be responsible for all the physical mayhem shown or related. As it turns out, Oliver Reed and his gang of hooligans come off as much more threatening than the film's ostensible monster! To make matters worse, we are never given a backstory for this feral creature of any kind, and Aunt Agatha's actions at the film's end are completely bewildering and out of character. The final 10 minutes of the film effectively torpedo what up until then had been a great-looking exercise in slow-escalation suspense. And so, though the film is ultimately a failure, it is a completely watchable one, at least. One final word: "The Shuttered Room" is supposedly based on a short story by the great H.P. Lovecraft and his uberfan, the writer August Derleth. And yet, although I have read all the Lovecraft works, and own the complete Lovecraft in the four authorized Arkham House editions, I have yet to run across a tale called "The Shuttered Room." I am guessing that the story was written by Derleth alone, and only based on Lovecraft's classic earlier tale, 1929's "The Dunwich Horror." (Dunwich is a fictional town in Massachusetts there, and not an island.) Whatever the case may be, I can only imagine that Derleth's original was a LOT more satisfying than the British film treatment. Still, the sight of gorgeous Carol Lynley in her skimpy white brassiere is something that neither Lovecraft nor Derleth could ever provide....

Married couple Mike and Sussanah Kelton (Gig Young and Carol Lynley) go to visit her childhood home. It's on a small island named Dunwich (ho ho) Island off the New England coast. They discover the islanders don't want them--local tough guy Ethan (Oliver Reed) and Aunt Agatha (Flora Robson) try to warn them away to no avail. They discover the house is abandoned...but there seems to a lone inhabitant chained up there.I caught this many moons ago on a local TV station. It was cut to ribbons! All the violence (there isn't much) was gone and entire scenes were cut out leaving the story incomprehensible. Seeing it now uncut, letter boxed and with no commercials I realized I wasn't missing much. This is based on the writings of H.P. Lovecraft. His stories are scary and beautifully written--but have never transferred well to the screen ("The Dunwich Horror" came the closest to doing him justice). This is no exception. It's slow-moving and pretty dull. A few mildly bloody murders towards the end don't compensate for the rest of it. Also it has sequences that seem to be included just to make the film feature length. Do we really need the part where Lynley is sexually threatened by Reed and his gang? Adding to that is that the resolution of the story doesn't make a bit of sense. There's also a dreadful music score which doesn't even remotely match the tone of the film.I give this five stars mostly for the acting and beautiful setting. Reed tries faking a New England accent and fails--but it IS fun hearing him attempt it. His acting is very good--he's matched by Robson and Lynley. Young is good too but he seems to be (wisely) kidding the material. There are some nice scenes too dealing with the inhabitant of the house. But, all in all, this is a failed attempt to bring Lovecraft to the screen. It's really too bad. If they had a decent script for this cast it might have been great. Dull and forgettable. I give it a 5.