Storage 24

After a plane crash in central London, a group in a storage containment facility find themselves trapped inside with the vicious alien creature released during the crash and must try to fight if off in order to get out alive.

This turned out to be a rather decent enough creature feature. One of the more enduring elements to this one is the fact that there's a refreshing simplicity to how it plays out, as the film's basically a one-note plot that really goes on through the notes quite efficiently and effectively to where it becomes routine more than anything about what goes on It consistently turns into confrontation, escape, confrontation, escape which is plenty of fun due to the tight, cramped location to work with the rather convoluted layout of the area and the continuous encounters where the creature chases them through heating ducts, storage units and throughout the building itself that the scenes make for a rather creepy and exciting set of action. The fact that the alien creature here is quite imposing is where it really helps score a little extra as well because the otherworldly appearance, as the spiked mouth, tentacled fingers and humanoid body create a powerful enough figure without seeing too much of it to lessen it's visual appeal as the creature really helps generate a lot of good marks during the film as the repetitive, action-packed nature of the film results in a creepy monster stalking and attacking people trapped in a creepy location, only to escape and run into it later on so there's a sense of familiarity to this as it goes on which can lower this somewhat. As well, the film's blatant disregard for information-revealing is a bit of a problem as it tends to keep so many ideas and plot-points completely unknown to the viewer about the alien creature, what happened to it and the fates of several characters, and about the only plot-point to this that doesn't work is the long build-up here that results in some painful amount of time not going anywhere due to the aggravation of the animosity towards each other. Otherwise, this is a fine effort.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

Lots of people get trapped in a building, with an alien beast on the loose. One of them has just broken up with his girlfriend. She's also stuck in there, along with the guy's best friend, who she was having an affair with. TENSION!! There's also an eccentric gentleman in an ugly dressing gown who might as well be followed by a huge neon sign which says COMEDY RELIEF, A gruff engineer trying to fix the strange power cuts which have been going on and off all day (guess what happens to him) and some others who can charitably be described as 'cannon fodder'.

Basically, this is a creature feature, the sort they've made for donkeys years... albeit a British one. The chases down narrow tunnels, the sight of disembodied limbs and torsos scattered about, even the fiend itself... are 'borrowed' from a million other movies... most specifically, a certain series starring Sigourney Weaver. This doesn't make it a bad film per se, but it's not one to fire up the imagination in any way (HEY THAT RHYMES!!). It provides a few cheap thrills, but you probably won't recall it a week from now. Or indeed, the next time you go to the bathroom. 5/10

The plot: A few people get trapped in a warehouse after a military plane goes down.

Storage 24 is a low budget, generic Alien clone. It's not really all that good, but I couldn't bring myself to hate it. For one thing, it's got Geoff Bell, the security guard from Botched, in a minor role. That brought back memories of Boris and his awesome lines. Besides the cult actor, there's also a cheesy alien who looks like a bizarre ripoff of several iconic aliens. The most obvious influence seems to be Predator, but there's also a lot of District 9 thrown in, too.

The acting and writing are uneven, but for grizzled genre veterans, this surely won't be a show stopper. If you've sat through Syfy original movies, then you've probably seen worse, though the competition is certainly going to be fierce. There's a bit of misogyny, macho posturing, and bland hero-making (where a whiny everyman transforms himself into a manly hero), but the biggest problem is that not too much happens for the first half of the movie. If you're the type of person who hates sitting through boring character development in a movie where you know that the characters are doomed to die soon, then you'll probably be a bit bored and restless. The deaths are a bit repetitive and not very original, but they're gory enough to keep the attention of most horror fans.

If you're looking for something deadly serious, I'd skip this movie. It's too cheesy and quirky to really take seriously. I have to wonder if they realized they were making a bad movie, then decided to just add a bunch of silly scenes, like actors feeling up mannequins and playing with toys. Well, for some people, that seems to have utterly ruined the movie, but, for me, it actually managed to save the movie. I really can't hate a movie which has actors copping a feel on a mannequin.

If you're the kind of person who needs high brow entertainment in his science fiction, you should definitely skip this movie. If you're looking for something to tide you over until the next direct-to-video ripoff of Alien comes out, then you should give some thought to watching this. If you're like me, then you've sat through much worse, and you'll probably be able to salvage some degree of entertainment from Storage 24.

It should be no surprise that a former (and still working SFX man) was at the helm of this movie. You can clearly see his handwriting or rather effects writing or whatever you want to call it. Unfortunately the script and the characters do not hold up to his effects standard. And while the movie is not bad, it's not really good either.

You get cardboard characters and story developments that are easily guessed by anyone watching the movie. It's still a neat ride overall, but never a really completely satisfying one. I don't really blame the actors too much on this, because I've seen some of them in better movies and with better performances. If the focus could have been on other things than the effects and the set pieces, there might have been a chance this movie would have gathered a larger following.

We all know that Alien was 'the daddy' when it comes to these sorts of 'monster-munching' movies. You have your alien/mutant/werewolf/whatever, chasing around a load of humans who are trapped in a spaceship/laboratory/missile silo/whatever, until the humans are suitably depleted enough to luckily beat the beast.

Storage 24 conforms to this template. My question: so what? I read once on the internet, when someone was comparing George Lucas' (commercially unsuccessful) 'Willow' to the (critically-acclaimed and money-spinning) Lord of the Rings franchise, they said: Obviously Lord of the Rings is a better film, but is it fun? Storage 24 is not a classic film. But, in my opinion, it IS fun.

It never takes itself too seriously. The characters are just about well-formed enough to be enjoyable and the monster is suitably horrible. Therefore, it pretty much has everything you can want when you're picking a monster-munching movie to eat popcorn to.

If you want something deep, classy and serious - go elsewhere. Suspend your disbelief... and enjoy.

NOTE: if there was an Oscar for 'best use of yapping dog toy,' Storage 24 would win hands down. And probably again the next year, too.