20131215: Horror Review--Storage 24

Storage 24

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. British live action feature length film, 2012, rated R, 87 minutes, horror, SciFi.
2. IMDB: 4.3/10.0 from 3,655 audience ratings.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 41% on the meter; 23% liked it from 2,411 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.2/5.0 from 133,456 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Johannes Roberts.
6. Starring: Noel Clarke as Charlie, Colin O'Donaghue as Mark, Antonia Campbell-Hughes as Shelley, Laura Haddock as Nikki, Jamie Thomas King as Chris, Ned Dennehy as David.


2. Setup and Plot
1. A few people are at a storage facility when odd things start happening.  One man looks out at his car to see that a large turbine engine has fallen on it.  One theory is that a jet broke up in the sky and the pieces crashed.


2. Mark and Charley drive to the storage, and just barely get in.  Charley is sad about the break up with Shelley.  Shelley and her friend Nikki are at the storage.  The maintenance engineer manages to screwup the circuitry of the gates on the storage just before the monster kills him.  So no one can get out right away, or any time soon. 


3. Shelley does not want to talk to Charley, and is having an affair with Mark.  Charley and Nikki are both surprised, and not in a good way.  Soon enough they know they are trapped, and that something murderous is in there with them.  Also present are Chris, from earlier in the day, and David, who more or less lives in the storage facility.


4. When the monster breaks through the door that they counted on to protect them, Chris runs and gets killed by the monster.  David shows them his setup for getting multiple newscasts.  The military is all over the place in London.


5. The five (Charley, Mark, Shelley, Nikki, David) who remain send Charley and Mark to traverse the ventilation tubes to steal weapons ('acquire' I suppose) from storage lockers not rented by them.  That goes well until the monster blocks Charley; he gets separated from Mark.


6. Will any of them get out alive?  Will the authorities come to the rescue, what with tanks patrolling the streets of London?




3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Five Londoners get stuck in a storage facility with a monster.
2. Three stars of five.  Also, director/writer, take your PC nonsense and shove it back where it came from.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 6/10 The monster was a classic main-in-the-rubber suit, but not all that well done.  Camera work was fine.


2. Sound: 7/10 If one gets the volume for conversation to be correct, the bump in the night sounds are enormously too loud.


3. Acting: 4/10 Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Laura Haddock, and Noel Clarke were just terrible.  Colin O'Donaghue was barely OK, while Ned Dennehy was the best.


4. Screenplay: 5/10 Short on plot as well as short on acting to implement the plot.  The stupid man-in-rubber-suit monster just turned me off to the story almost as much as the acting.  When the monster does not get killed by the fireworks, I'm not surprised, but why was the nearby Shelley OK?