“Someone has to go first, and someone’s left to cry
One will have memories, and one will leave this life”
—”All the Way”, Abandon Jalopy
Years ago, when I worked in the frozen section of a grocery store, an elderly customer asked if we sold carrots, peas, and corn pre-combined. “Yes.” I answered, while handing over a bag, finding it strange that he’d never heard of “mixed vegetables”. The man thanked me, sighed heavily, and with a pitiful look on his face proceeded to tell me how hard and confusing things had been since his wife passed away. I was young and ill-prepared for a doozy of that magnitude, so I probably said something stupid like “Uhh, sorry… Welp, thanks for shopping.” Our interaction still haunts me, and begs an important question:
How would you fare if your spouse died tomorrow? A horrible thought, but just humor me. Practically speaking, I’d be the most helpless piece of shit ever, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. I married young, doing little adulting before meeting my wife. We’ve tag-teamed life every step of the way. Flying solo again sounds intimidating. Insurmountable, even. Especially as a phone call-hating introvert.
Behind every good man is a good woman, they say, and my wife is the greatest. To borrow another cliche, she’s the glue holding our family together. We’d be lost in her absence. She makes our appointments, keeps the laundry at bay, cooks delicious meals, smell-tests questionable leftovers, and so much more. Plus, let’s be honest, the kids like her better. Sure, I could feed them, but who’s feeding me? Either I’d starve or eat nothing but junk food until I ballooned to an unhealthy size.
My wife is so great, she even planned for this outcome. If and when she predeceases me, I marry her sister. Except… that arrangement was never cleared with my in-law, and now she’s dating some doctor, meaning I’m back to square screwed, or I’m doing a murder. Rolls up sleeves. Sorry dude.
First order of business in my hypothetical sad new existence? Adjusting my work schedule so the kids get to school, I suppose. Next would be figuring out the wife’s passwords, what bills she pays, and how to pay them myself. After that, I don’t know, but it probably involves lots of crying. As daunting as all the logistics are, they pale compared to the heartache. My wife is my best friend, the only adult I genuinely enjoy spending time with on a regular basis. The only person who understands me. I can’t imagine watching AEW Dynamite or 90 Day Fiancé alone. The very thought of it terrifies me. For half of every domestic partnership, though, widowhood is inevitable. And considering Bae is nine years my senior, it’s probably me. Some day, I’ll be that old man.
Our feature presentation addresses this uncomfortable topic. Cellar Noire is an ultra-low-budget Canadian psychological drama written, directed, and starring Vancouverite [name redacted] under his nom de film, Zbigniew “Biggy” Winzig. Like his previous effort, Foot Finding Feats: Bigfoot Found or Fraud, it’s a one-man production, performed entirely by him, and confined to a single location to boot. 95% of it takes place in a crawlspace beneath his home and follows Warren, an alcoholic hoarder/possible agoraphobe who becomes trapped there for reasons I’ll lay out momentarily. Full spoilers ahead.
Image “enhanced” and edited.
We meet Warren sleeping on children’s Spiderman sheets, under a pile of empty Dorito bags, soda bottles, and beer cans. Text appears intermittently across the bottom of the screen noting the current day and time. At 11:07 am, garbage trucks wake him. Whose garbage service comes that late? Must be a Canadian thing. Warren groggily sits up and starts playing Gamecube. From this we gather he’s not only a slob, he’s trapped in the past. “More beer, more beer.” he mutters.
Warren often repeats random words and even whole sentences, narrating his thoughts in a stream of consciousness style to fill the dead air, as otherwise there would be little audio aside from the film-noir inspired soundtrack composed by — wait for it — Winzig. While a portion of his rambling nonsense was captured on set, much appears to be voiceover. My wife keeps thinking he’s an actor she follows on Facebook. Apparently, they sound similar.
Warren pulls out a pipe and sparks up. That night, he dies. Damn, I assumed he was smoking weed, but it must have been crack! AI-generated images of his youth flash before his eyes. An angel orders him back to his body. He re-awakens, this time to his phone ringing. It’s his mother. From his side of the conversation, we learn that he’s unemployed, off his meds, and recently widowed. He lies and says he’s applying for jobs. His mom suggests donating his wife’s clothes, to move forward, I guess.
“Widescreen TV, composite input, wired old school game controller, beer can, tinnitus buzzing, trains and trucks, no, nothing else…” Warren says, “beer can, my fingers, my sore ass, my bladder.” A prime example of the schizophrenic, half-narrative gibberish he spouts. Again, though it rarely makes sense, it’s necessary unless you prefer awkward stretches of silence. At the mention of his bladder, Warren gets up and goes to the bathroom.
His mirror is covered in sticky notes reading “bless this mess”, “call mom”, “shower”, and humorously enough, “eat shit”. The sink is so cluttered he mistakes cleaner for mouthwash and vomits. A shot from inside his toilet bowl captures the moment.
This guy always looks different. I swear he’s a gosh-darn chameleon.
Day 0, 11:07 PM. Warren heads down to his basement. The shallow room he ducks into is what I and most other people would call a crawlspace. “Cellar”, to me, conjures images of a dirt-floored, stone-walled, food and wine storage area. Winzig knows this and chose the term as a reference to Edgar Allan Poe, whose favorite phrase was supposedly “cellar door”. I’m reminded of Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado, in which the narrator leads a friend through a series of catacombs and wine cellars to a crypt and immures him alive.
On his way through the fateful passage, Warren passes two multi-gallon water jugs. He begins sorting the contents of an old storage trunk. He pulls out a gun, later explained to be a BB gun, along with some cheap glow sticks and a hand-crank emergency radio. It’s not hard to imagine how these items will come into play. Let’s see if they do. Warren grumbles about what a mess the place is, but all I spy are neatly organized boxes and totes.
Coughing, he throws on a surgical mask, plus a cheap set of bunny ears to protect his head from the super-low ceiling. Suddenly, the room shakes and he smacks his gourd anyway. The “cellar” door slams shut behind him, a wooden board falls against it, and just for good measure, a bunch of luggage lands in front of it too. Warren is trapped.
Soon, things take a turn. Over his radio, Warren picks up a news bulletin — lack of one, rather — stating authorities were unable to determine the cause of the earthquake. Speculation is either a meteor impact or nuclear strike. Additional theories include a gas line explosion, train derailment, solar flare, volcanic eruption, tsunami, or even the second coming of Christ. As for planetary invasion, apparently that’s off the table. Brief, distorted clips of old civil defense footage heavily nudge it toward nuclear war. Damn, they’re distracting from the Epstein Files in this universe too? Here’s what newscasters do know: cell phones are down, ships have vanished from the harbor, and the sky is now black. Further broadcasts advise citizens to shelter in place, announcing martial law was declared.
While the movie seems to be heading a certain conspiratorial and/or apocalyptic direction, it never depicts that side of things. Instead, the camera stays focused on Warren. These chaotic scenarios are only hinted at, leaving our imaginations to wander.
The first major problem Warren encounters is that of urination. When nature calls, he pees down a pipe jutting out of the ground that might connect to a similar pipe we keep seeing under a storm drain. Shortly thereafter, he wastes a bunch of water rinsing his face. You’ve gotta ration it, bud! That’s Apocalypse 101 shit.
Second problem: panic attacks and/or boredom. Once he works past them, Warren duct-tapes a lid to his toilet pipe and seals the cracks of the blocked entrance to prevent gas from leaking in.
Luckily, he just so happens to have random Pop-Tarts, MREs, and calorie-dense food bars stashed around, meaning hunger and starvation aren’t immediate concerns. He often loses track of time, understandably so, telling it’s noon each day by the sound of Vancouver’s Heritage Horns. At the forty-four-minute mark, he assembles a glow-in-the-dark skeleton Halloween decoration I’ll henceforth refer to as “Jack” for convenience and begins talking to it, presenting a “Wilson”-type situation.
Next, a large vehicle shakes Warren’s house and he hears a shootout, which he presumes to have been between law enforcement and looters. As a result, he nervously shatters his trouble light, plunging himself into near-total darkness, with only a small amount of illumination from other supplies. At one point, text says Day 8, however, he scratches a sixth hash mark onto a cardboard box and insists it’s day 6. Likewise, on Day 14, there are only twelve marks.
Fast-forward a bit and he runs out of water, facing his biggest obstacle yet. He responds by sawing a hole through a pipe on the ceiling for more.
Later, Warren thinks he sees and hears mice behind every box. I assumed he’d switch focus to hunting, killing, and possibly eating said mice, but the angle is left unexplored and chalked up to him losing his mind. Instead, he head-bangs and drums a Danish cookie tin to the rhythm of dripping water. The subtitles quip “Neil Peart he is not”. Let’s see, what else happens here? Oh, he writes a note to his mom, complaining that summer camp sucks. What looks like a phone or tablet is visible on the floor. Whoops.
My favorite part would have to be when he plays “Go” against Jack — a game involving placing pennies on the intersections of a hand-drawn grid. Jack unexpectedly interrupts Warren’s turn, proclaiming in a demon voice, “That’s an illegal move. I’ve already captured that spot.”
As days pass, Warren grows colder, piling on more clothes, hats, gloves, ties, and blankets. While vacating his bowels in the pipe, Warren hears a search-and-rescue squad marking his house clear and moving onto the next. Sadly, he fails to get their attention. Around this time, he finds a pocket Bible and becomes oddly religious/philosophical. “Prayer, the last refuge of a scoundrel.” he says, opening the book. “Anxiety is the intrusion and reoccurrence of unwanted ideas. Keep yourself busy. Idle hands…” Then, he reads a few passages detailing the relationship between darkness and light.
On a few occasions, he chants variations of, “Mi amore. Bête noire. Cellar noire. Nothing more. Morte amore. Memento mori.” Translated: “My love. Black beast. Black cellar. Nothing more. Death love. Remember death.”
Eventually, Warren concludes God is ending the world and nobody will save him because they’re all damned. So, he decides to kill himself. He rules out fire, exsanguination, and hanging. Jack suggests putting hanging down as a maybe. Warren likes the idea of overdosing on old medications, combined with his father’s moonshine. Jack warns he’ll just wake up hungover and blind. Warren hears barking. He calls the dogs Hell Hounds.
Almost every time he falls asleep, the deformed AIngel returns (toward the end, its feet are missing entirely), telling him to come back and not die. As the film nears its conclusion, Warren reflects on his wife’s death, remembering how she suffered terminal bone cancer. Not wanting to bankrupt them with her medical bills (in Canada?), one day, she vanished. It’s implied and Warren believes that she killed herself, though her body was never recovered. Despite this, she was declared dead. Warren recalls reading over a do-not-resuscitate directive.
This thing is uncanny. Angel or demon?
“Read in a dream and you know you’re dreaming.” he remarks. “It’s a dream. It’s a nightmare. Watching her die. Her watching my grief. And our bankruptcy. It wasn’t as simple as she committed suicide. She did leave a note. But then she just disappeared… We buried an empty casket.”
Warren lies down and starts on a suicide note of his own while tender piano music plays. “Dear everyone. I’ve decided. It’s time to go. I know how this ends and I want it to end my way…” Except he’s not actually forming real letters, he’s scribbling illegibly. Dude’s pouring his heart out for nothing. Even if somebody did come across it, they wouldn’t be able to read it. I laughed way too hard at this.
“Better off dead than to let all this crazy survive. Losing the love of my life. Losing a love for life. This life isn’t for everyone and I wouldn’t expect you to understand. I spent the last few years ruining life, not living it. Why continue? I’m just so tired. I’m done.”
If I’m being honest, this whole portion is slightly pretentious and long-winded. On day 15, at midnight, Warren shares his father’s moonshine with Jack. He says “The party starts at noon. We mustn’t be late. It’s very important. It’s the last supper.” He tells Jack he’s going to eat, drink, be merry, and fade away. He passes out, murmuring in his sleep “Angel, why?” She tells him “It’s ok, it was just a bad dream, all of this.”
A few more words are exchanged. The storm drain is shown once again and so is the title. Credits roll. A drone shot ascends above townhouse apartments, snow-capped mountains rising behind them. A screen, white text on black, reads:
“Help is available / Speak with someone today / Call or text 9-8-8 / toll free, any time / lines are open 24/7/365 / Languages: English, French”
In pace requiescat!
Ultimately, I wasn’t sure what to expect here, or where Winzig would take us. I did enjoy Cellar Noire and was able to pull meaning from it, however, my thoughts are still settling, even after a second viewing. Like Foot Finding Feats, the film explores themes of grief, depression, isolation, and mental illness. Warren at some point withdrew from the outside world to the safety of his home. Initially, he confines himself there of his own free will, but that choice is soon taken away. The movie gets interesting early on when he picks up the news bulletin implying they may have experienced more than a straightforward earthquake. It occurred to me then that Warren lucked out by chancing into an inadvertent shelter from whatever horrible threat lurked above. Yet, I quickly realized, it doesn’t matter if the outside world is ending or not, because Warren’s already has. The real catastrophe struck long before the opening frame.
He wastes supplies, his mental state further deteriorates, and instead of a shelter, his cellar becomes his tomb. The setting works well as his mind. He suddenly, unexpectedly finds himself trapped, in the dark, with no means of escape as depression overtakes him. The character’s name and headgear, plus a few of his lines, are nods to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, suggesting he’s tumbled too far down his hole. Keeping with the rabbit motif, Warren jokes about tunneling straight through the earth. His skeletal companion symbolizes the obvious — death, specifically suicidal ideation. Jack speaks and Warren just rolls with it. Once he commits to ending his life, he’s strangely accepting of his fate, borderline excited by it.
I interpret the final shots of the storm drain and drone ascending past townhouses as Warren’s soul escaping to be with Angel again (apparently, that mountain is called “Angel” locally). However, the film keeps things ambiguous, spinning a web of uncertainty. Whether Warren dies or is rescued, or the events as a whole, including the circumstances surrounding his wife’s disappearance, are real, or imagined, or a dream, is up to you. At least three shots of the crawlspace contain what looks like a body wrapped in a tarp. This, combined with a passing mention of Angel’s family choosing not to include pictures of Warren in her memorial slideshow leaves room for the possibility that Warren may have been responsible for her death and that her family suspected it. The question arises, was it a mercy killing, or something more sinister?
At two hours, Cellar Noire runs a bit long for a glorified single-location home movie. Realistically, only so much can happen to one man inside a dimly-lit, four-foot-high storage area. Perhaps a few scenes of Warren organizing and re-organizing his junk could have been trimmed. It’s a deeply personal project, bravely made on a cool premise, but lacks the visual meat we viewers enjoy, or the kind of performance to carry it. In other words, there aren’t any special effects to speak of, the AI is already outdated, and Winzig — well, I doubt he’ll be winning an Oscar. On account of these (in some instances self-imposed) limitations, the movie won’t be for everybody.
Supposing you haven’t put two and two together, the movie is based on Winzig’s biggest fear, losing his wife, which almost happened twice due to illness and a serious car accident, and serves as a hypothetical, worst-case scenario, a metaphorical look at what could have been, had she died. Warren goes from denial to panic to survival to resignation the same way Winzig or I possibly would if dealt such a hand. Whereas similar films are about hope and the perseverance of the human spirit, Cellar Noire leans the other direction, telling us to give up. It’s dark in both tone and the literal sense, but forces us to look inward, confronting some unpleasant truths, and for that I do recommend it.
Warren’s mask and the general concept of being trapped in one’s home may also be commenting on the long-term psychological toll of the COVID lockdowns. According to Winzig, the shoot was quite dusty and claustrophobic, meaning much of his coughing was genuine, not acting. Overall, he’s an underrated filmmaker with interesting ideas, hindered by limited resources and/or experience. Who knows what he could accomplish with even a modest budget and small crew.
Completed and screened to me back in the Fall, the film has since been released for free on his YouTube channel. Support him by checking it out. As for what’s next: an animated feature based on a true story he’s already been researching and prepping for ages. “I’m done being in front of the camera.” he claims. Best of luck! And here’s to many more years of blissful marriage! Until my next review, go hug your family, your dog, your cat, whoever you’ve got, because life is short and you never know when that figurative door could slam shut.
The Devil's DVD Bin 