Storage 24

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.

Quite well made with some nice creature effects, but I'm afraid it has little else in its favour. Yes, there are a few 'jump out of your skin' moments, but it really doesn't do anything we haven't seen before. For me, they revealed far too much of the creature far too soon; for horror to work well, it needs to be in the shadows. It's what the audience doesn't see that scares them; the imagination is a very powerful thing if manipulated correctly. The performances were all decent enough although nobody really stood out. On the plus side the running time was nice and short and the pace was kept pretty high throughout. Oh, and I have to admit, I love the ending!… Sadly not quite enough for it to get my recommendation though.

SteelMonster's verdict: NOT RECOMMENDED

My score: 5.6/10

You can find an expanded version of this review on my blog: Thoughts of a SteelMonster.

The DVD case that is.

OK, expecting a masterpiece of claustrophobic stalk and slash horror with this one is as daft as some of the dialogue is in the actual film. It is after all a low budget, low grade British clone of many many other films of similar formulaic ilk. But that said, you have to have some standards and a point when you stand up and say it's just not good enough to blame costs and accept poorness because of a willingness to be indie cool.

Storage 24 is a bad film, yes there is a good portion of gore for those inclined, the creature design is decent and the inner conflict in the group (boy/girl romantic triangle trouble wouldn't you know) at least keeps character interest from sinking to the depths of us not caring right away. But the screenplay meanders all too often, boorish chatter and emoting only serving to make you prey the creature turns up post haste. Jolts are telegraphed, as are the switching sympathies with the lead protagonists. Acting is poor, except maybe Ned Dennehy, who is playing a bonkers hermit smelly bloke and enjoys himself, and Noel Clarke as the hero in waiting dude scurrying around trying to save the day.

Clarke also produces, while Johannes Roberts directs, Clarke (Adulthood/Kidulthood) is much better than this, as is Roberts (F), but the pair are just saying we have watched Super 8 and Alien and feel like turning one out ourselves. That says there is no pretensions here, but it is also lazy film making. The explosive finale comes laced with tongue firmly in cheek, but nothing previously warrants this being tagged as a hip and funny horror/comedy, tried it has, but Severance it isn't. It's the inconsistencies that coupled with the standard formula make Storage 24 a weak film that's difficult to recommend to anyone but the type of horror fan that keeps watching all those Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday 13th sequels...and loving them. 4/10

Storage 24 tries so hard to be Alien for this generation, but sadly fails on pretty much every level except this film does have a pretty cool monster.

This may fail in trying to be alien, but i would not say this is a terrible movie. the acting is generally OK through out with some less than desirable moments . But Noel Clarke is continuing to develop into a decent leading man. the claustrophobic nature of the story does add an extra element to the movie building up to some pretty decent jump scares and also providing a decent amount of gore, but not going to far for the sake of it. surprisingly it managed to make me laugh on more that one occasion.

One thing i have to praise is that being a low budget sci-fi/horror it still managed to be shot in a decent way so i could see what is going on. Many films now a days, especially horror films like to play in the dark and shadows so much that can barley see or make out what is going on.

Negatively some of the story points really annoyed me, and i found them distracting. the ending tries to end on a larger scale. when it would have been better off keeping to it's smaller premise. It doesn't offer much either in the guessing game of who's going to live and who's going to die.

Overall a fair effort, but pretty standard low budget British movie.

In London, a military plane crashes leaving its highly classified contents strewn across the city. Completely unaware that the city is in lockdown, a group of people become trapped inside a storage facility with a highly unwelcome guest.

Not much to say on this one... there really was not as much horror as I wish there was... I had no connection with the characters... the plot was good but not as nicely executed as I wish it would have been.

Jeremy Clarke from The Guardian said "Johannes Roberts' warehouse-set monster flick is unexpectedly entertaining" and Kim Newman from Empire called it "a superior British horror sci-fi." I suppose that means I missed something. I guess I should re-examine Roberts' film and maybe his other work...