There is absolutely nothing new or original about STORAGE 24. A small group of ordinary people trapped in a small space with a killer thing? ALIEN much? THE THING spring to mind? Well STORAGE 24 riffs on all of those 'monster on the loose' movies with dark corridors, narrow conduits to be crawled through, people dragged into the roof, the scary cellar... the list goes on.

Then again, this isn't a film with pretensions to being anything other than a fun, low-budget scarer and it's a fairly solid, if unspectacular, one at that. There are a few jumps (usually accompanied by loud thumps on the soundtrack just to make sure that you do jump) and some mildly tense moments, but this isn't going to even raise hairs on the arms of hardened horror fans despite having some nicely gooey gory effects bits.

The characters are neither original nor deep. The cast do more with them than the script has any right to deserve, turning sketches in, well slightly more detailed sketches. They are people you don't get to know, but don't mind spending the films 80 minutes or so with. This is a ovie that doesn't outstay its welcome.

It's also got a quirky sense of humour. There's a deranged character who lives inside the storage facility, a couple (and not many more than that) nice punchlines and a new use for little walking yap-yap toy dogs.

The film knows its limited budget and tries to play within that, mostly to good effect, but what really lets things down is the alien. Once it appears and is seen fully, all sense of threat is gone. It's a nice enough design, but it never looks or moves like a real creature and is never believable.

For a Friday night beer and movie where you don't want to engage your mind, STORAGE 24 is a good enough time-passer, but it's not going to linger long in the memory.

It's available from October 29th.

Trailer