THE CELLAR

A zombie teenage romance loosely associated with Romeo and Juliet, written under a pseudonym by a romance-writer and her teenage daughter. (Their previous attempt, 2009's The Well, had Hamlet connections.) The tall, gorgeous stranger who moves in next door manages to bring 16-year-old Heather out of a depression following her father’s death in a car accident she caused. Though all the girls are swooning over mysterious Adrien St. Germaine, he zeroes in on Heather, volunteering to play Romeo opposite her in the school’s production. Only Heather’s 17-year-old sister Meredith is suspicious of him and his decrepit “mother” Marie. Are her visions of worms and beetles behind Adrien’s ever-present sunglasses and glimpses of coffins and corpses in the St. Germaine cellar real, or are they just symptoms of her deteriorating eyesight and grief over her father? Is she also imagining that Sam, Heather’s old boyfriend, likes her the way she likes him? The horror tale is told in alternating voices: Meredith’s teenage commentary and ruminations and a third-person narration filtering the thoughts of Heather (as she falls under Adrien’s spell) and Adrien (as his determination to possess Heather forever triggers a zombie war, starting in his creepy cellar and culminating on the set of Romeo and Juliet). The disgusting living dead meet suburban high-school students in this B-movie of a book. (Paranormal romance. 12 & up)