Review of Storage 24 (2012) by Howard N — 03 May 2013

Noel Clarke first came to my notice playing Mickey Smith in Dr Who back in the mid noughties (around 2005). He had done quite a lot of stuff beforehand, but this introduced him to a much wider audience. I have watched his progress over the years; going into writing, producing and directing; all with some degree of success. It was on the strength of his past works that I decided to give this one a look; he came up with the original idea. So what did I think?... Well I'll tell you after this very brief summary.

A military plane crashes in London putting the capitol on high alert. It causes widespread disruption with power outages and all kinds of problems with electrical systems. A group of people find themselves trapped in a storage facility when the fail-safe system kicks in and the automatic shutters come down. They are: Charlie (Noel Clarke) who has just split up with Shelley (Antonia Campbell-Hughes); her best friend, Nikki (Laura Haddock), Charlie's best friend, Mark (Colin O'Donoghue) and Chris (Jamie Thomas King), who I think may have been going out with Nikki, but it's not made all that clear. The trouble is, there's something trapped in there with them... Something that came off that plane; something that's really not happy.

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.