13 Hours in a Warehouse

A friend and I were quite bored yesterday evening, and with both of us being fans of low budget horror flicks, figured we would give this one a watch. If you are of like mind and in a similar situation, save yourself some mental anguish and remove this from your netflicks que. No really, open a new tab to your netflicks account and do it now. I cannot begin to understand the mental workings of those who have positively reviewed this film, nor would I want to. Were I to author an idiots guide on how to monumentally fail at film making, my readers would be directed to watch this film as a failsafe. Terrible acting? Check. Poor stages and lighting? Hell yes. Plot points stolen from classic horror films, mashed together willy-nilly, and vomited up in true Linda Blair fashion? You bet your as*. From the first line of poorly scripted and pathetically delivered dialog to the hackneyed attempt at a surprise ending, this film is a true lemon.

P.S.: For those of you unfortunate enough to have seen either "House of the Dead" or "Zombie Nation", just think of "13 Hours in a Warehouse" as an equivalently disastrous film possessed of a lower budget.

I noticed this movie because I thought the cover was really cool looking. The first thing I thought was, is this going to be a Saw rip off (there's a saw blade shown on the cover). It wasn't, but it ripped off more movies than any of the Scary Movies. Unlike Scary Movie which was supposed to spoof other movies, this takes itself very seriously. I recommend watching this with a group of people as it will be more entertaining that way (I saw it in a group of 4).

It starts out with a group of guys planning to heist an art gallery and then meeting up at an abandoned warehouse. A woman is carjacked and brought to the warehouse. She is tied up while the crew apparently didn't rip off Reservoir Dogs enough as an imitation Steve Buscemi instead of talking about Madonna, talks about Robin Williams and what a genius he is. I can't make this up.

A series of numbers keeps appearing as well. Ghosts that look like a combination of The Ring, 13 Ghosts and Pulse characters appear.

I don't want to ruin anymore of this gem for you. We came up with this list of movies that were ripped off for this film: Reservoir Dogs,The Ring, 13 Ghosts, Pulse, Silence Of The Lambs, Hostel, The Blair Witch Project, Gothika, 8MM, Pulp Fiction and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There's probably more, but thats what I could come up with now.

Lets hope there's a 14 Hours In A Warehouse in the works................NOT!

Just imagine you and your friends, a bunch of cinema fans, have time to kill, and one comes out with the idea: let's make a zero budget movie. If you are in this mood this movie is an absolute must: you will get a lot of good hints and a (short) list of things to avoid. And dream to be as good a beginner as this Kaufman is. You will need a location: if it is good you can just write the script inside it, by night. An abandoned, gloomy, brownish, creepy warehouse would be perfect; you can have it for just a few beers. The genre, of course, horror/fantasy to avoid the traps of intimate dramas, or the costs action movies. With a wise script special effects can be very simple and at the same time so pertinent to their background to be unarguable (when you see them in this movie, just reflect how they are obtained and what's the relationship with the story). The movie has apparently no pretensions, the language is simple, the end may be imagined, the use of cinematographic archetypes abundant, citations range from Charlie Chaplin (a character features this across the whole movie, and, please don't think it's naive or stupid, on the contrary, it gives a special flavor) to the standard up-to-date gore. A partial theatrical approach also helps giving some structure, but in the whole, it is the location that keeps all together. There are nice ideas here and there that put salt in the soup, some scenes that need a bit of cleaning, the suspense is always alive. A film to look with critical eye to fully enjoy it. But if you are a lazy consumer and like the genre, it is worth the price anyway.

Poster looked wicked sick. I always rent 3 movies on Tuesday. I snag 2 new releases then go for a B horror movie. Been doing that for a couple of years. I gotta around to watching 13 Hours yesterday. First few minutes started off good. You got criminals holed up in a warehouse that had a spooky past. Chill factor was right there. People get spooked when they visit places like abandoned mental hospitals for the insane or old mortuary places where dead people where.

Spooky past for this was a pretty cool idea. The warehouse used to be a kinky film studio where people got snuffed out. B movies always steal from bigger movies. 13 Hours mashed together Reservoir Dogs and 8MM.

13 Hours is a B horror movie that looks good with special effects. Not like a group of high school friends out with a video camera and flashlight trying to make a movie. Its gonna sound bad but it looks like a movie. Good as any Wes Craven or Rob Zombie movie. Where it slowly moved in to torture was how boring and bad the story came out. It was painful to watch. Cheap acting with even cheaper directing. Wes Craven or Rob Zombie would have made this a good movie. You could give whoever made this movie a million bucks and Wes Craven or Rob Zombie whatever they really spent. Guess who wins? My advice to the people who made 13 Hours is to give up. Stay away from 13 hours like a rotting corpse.

I watched this film last night, and I was quite impressed. It encompassed everything I would hope from a low-budget independent film, but always find myself disappointed time and again. This film gallantly strayed from the usual excessive blood and guts and T & A that some filmmakers use to make up for a nothing story line, and I applaud director Dav Kaufman for having the guts to break free from the routine and tired formula and present something not only suspenseful, but fresh and entertaining as well…especially on his debut film. That's a risk the majority of filmmakers are afraid to take, even seasoned ones, and it paid off rather well. I know from experience that this director has a career in front of him.

The relationships between the thieves I found both intriguing and believable. I can't help but to wonder how things would have turned out for them if the ghosts didn't intervene. The acting talents of the cast (who I assume on a low-budget film such as this were paid nothing) while certainly not Oscar worthy, but served their characters well. What was obvious was that they understood their characters enough to make us believe their motivations, their struggles, and their internal conflicts, or lack thereof as is the case with the older brother.

This film reminded me of the subtle Hitchcockian suspense films of the old days. It's not what you're shown that scares you, it's what you're led to believe might happen that does. But I also think that with today's more sophisticated and cynical audiences, this film may be placed in the "underappreciated" category.

I see some others have inaccurately compared this movie to the likes of Reservoir Dogs. Comparing the two is like comparing a Mercedes to a School Bus because they both have four tires and a windshield. By that rationale, every zombie movie is a rip-off of every other zombie movie, every vampire film, every football or baseball film, and so on.

If all you watch movies in this genre for is to be shocked by graphic and gory scenes which pose as a sacrifice for a good, solid story, and does nothing but insult your intelligence, then this is not the film for you. If you prefer a more sophisticated, keep-you-hooked suspense film with an intriguing story then I highly recommend this one! I look forward to more from this director.