So with gypsy curses, demonic hoodies and naked female monsters under his belt its time for director Johannes Roberts to turn his attentions to sci-fi horror. ‘Storage 24’ is the tale of a group of people trapped inside one of those 24 hour storage facilities in London following a plane crash with a difference. The military cargo plane was carrying a mysterious alien life form which soon ends up in the warehouse along with our group made up of a whole mixture of twisted relationships. It’s down to them to survive the night and escape the lockup in one piece as they’re about to be joined by the drooling blood-thirsty monster.
‘Storage 24’ is written and produced by rising talent Noel Clarke who also stars as Charlie. Both him and his best friend Mark (Colin O’Donoghue) pop over to the warehouse to pick up junk that the recently dumped Charlie must retrieve following, his much discussed, breakup with his ex-girlfriend Shelley (played by Antonia Campbell-Hughes). Due to bad timing however Charlie bumps into his ex and her friends in the storage room and find themselves fighting side by side to fend off the out of this world invader.
The dialogue keeps the action ticking along successfully although is often swarmed by conversations about ‘the relationship’ and then which ultimately turns on the character twists which in all honesty you could smell coming a mile off. More often than not the relationship sub-plot pulled the attention away from the impending doom of having their limbs torn apart from a unworldly monster with more teeth than the Osmonds. And it drags its audience with it.
The script is let down a great deal by some of the filmmaking choices. The creature, for what its worth, isn’t treated with enough respect on screen and certain shot selections really let it down when attempting to secure a solid scare. There’s an overuse of close-up shots particularly when its comes to the creature sequences which do nothing more than trigger a couple of minor jump moments as opposed to what could have been shock inducing fear. Aside from the close-ups the majority of interior shots almost fall apart due to being over lit. Obviously the internal workings of the storage facility would be well lit with numerous fluorescent light fixtures; however, this means that when the creature is crawling through the corridors of the structure it really is all on show. And the creature isn’t top notch enough to deal with it.
OVERALL SUMMARY
The creature isn’t unlike anything we’ve seen before and more an accumulation of other ideas and influences from sci-fi past. Although it’s a great effort for a British horror of this scale and fits in nicely enough with the overall tone. The script is perfectly intelligible for the type of movie its aiming to be and appears to be well footed in what its trying to achieve. Sadly, however, ‘Storage 24’ does little to bring anything new to the genre and the creature itself certainly isn’t particularly original nor overly scary. It’s certain lacking gives it its charm but also flings it kicking and screaming straight into the mini-mart budget bin. It’s a fun Friday night in flick but nothing more. I’d recommend going out and renting ‘Attack the Block’ instead.
