STORAGE 24

UK, 2012, 87 minutes, Colour.
Noel Clarke, Colin O’ Donoghue, Antonia Campbell- Hughes, Laura Riddick, Jamie Thomas King, Ned Dennehy, Geoff Bell.
Directed by Johannes Roberts.

Once again, aliens attack the United Kingdom, specifically London, in a small budget horror-menace film.

Perhaps encouraged by the box office success of Attack the Block, Noel Clarke and his associates have invented a variation on the theme, a group of people trapped in quite a vast storage centre and menaced by an alien creature. This is something of a surprise from Noel Clarke who was responsible for the quite gritty social dramas, Adulthood, Kidulthood.

The setting for the film is quite impressive, the storage space and its corridors, yellow and blue in tone, creating an atmosphere. The creature is also impressively done, for those who like this kind of thing, capitalising on the many previous models for alien monsters.

There is a small group of people who work in the storage centre. The man in charge is quickly disposed of. So is the maintenance man. This leaves a couple of the workers with Noel Clarke arriving, embittered and petulant by the betrayal of his girlfriend who is also one of those in the storage centre. And it is complicated by his best friend being the person she betrayed him with.

For the rest of the film, it is a process of some elimination, the young people trying their best to avoid the monster, with the help of a strange man who lives in the storage centre but who is prepared to sacrifice his life of the others.

A film designed for those fans of alien menace.

1. A British alien invasion story? Small-budget? Cast, set?

2. The London setting, few externals, confined to the storage centre, its vastness, the corridors, the rooms? Office, basement, moving through the roof panels?

3. Horror film? The sense of menace? The plane crashing in Hyde Park? The creature in the storage? Attacking the repair man? Menacing the others? The visuals of the alien? Close-up, the conventional aspects of the creature? Attacking people, mangling people? The destruction of the monster?

4. The personal stories? Charlie and Mark, Charlie and his intensity, wanting to find Shelley, the breaking of the relationship? Mark trying to restrain him? Going into the storage? Finding Shelley, the truth, the irony of her relationship with Mark? Charlie thinking the man was Chris? Mickey and her presence with the group?

5. The man in charge of the office, his work, the disturbances, the electricity, meeting the repair man, the repair man going to the basement, his death? The man in charge hiding with the mannequins?

6. The emotional tangles? Sense of betrayal?

7. The group trying to manage, in the corridors, in the storage rooms, above the ceiling, the search? The various encounters with the creature?

8. Mark, surly, not opening the door, his being destroyed? Chris and his being attacked while getting the snacks? Hiding in the room? The mannequins? Shelley and her being trapped, escaping? The creature and its fascination with the toys, the toy dog, with explosives?

9. Charlie, overcoming his disappointment, his becoming courageous, searching out the creature, Shelley’s rescue, destroying the creature?

10. The strange old man, his story about his wife, the group suspecting him of being the killer, his knowing the storage area, living there, finding the weapons? Sacrificing himself for the others?

11. The TV coverage, what was happening outside, the planes flying over London, the alien invasion?

12. The group getting free, coming out into the world, what world?