Stormhouse

This is without a doubt one of the worst horror movies that I have had to suffer through, so I guess the label 'horror' was accurate in that sense, but in the sense of it being a scary movie, not so much.

"Stormhouse" starts off with indicating "This film was inspired by real events". Yeah, then that makes me Elvis Presley incarnated. So they want us to believe that the British military had managed to capture a spirit entity from the afterlife? And to make matters even worse, keep it secured in a small fenced yard? Right! Lets see, spirit entities are incorporeal and ethereal, meaning they would be able to traverse in any direction and even through solid matter. But still, the director wanted us to believe that a chain-linked fence (without a roof) was sufficient to hold such a supernatural entity at bay?

Moving on. And for a military base, it is without a doubt the most unlit installation in the history of military bases. I have never seen such lack of lighting anywhere. And I found it highly unrealistic and questionable that a military force would keep their base shrouded in perpetual darkness. And it just didn't help the movie one bit either, as most of the time we can hardly see what is going on because of the poor (well, lack of) lighting in almost every scene.

As for being a 'horror' movie, then "Stormhouse" was really a major disappointment, as there were no scares in it at all - probably because we couldn't see what was going on as there wasn't sufficient lighting anywhere. And also, the entire story was just so very implausible that it didn't work out on any level.

I am a big fan of horror movies, and I do like supernatural movies, but this one was just too much waste of time and effort. There are far better ghost movies available on the market. Actually, you might even be better off (and more entertained) by movies such as those awful "Paranormal Activity" movies. But still, they were better than this one.

One thing that "Stormhouse" had working for it, though, was the people they had cast for the various roles. Most of them actually did good enough jobs in acting, but nothing really memorable here though.

It wasn't very far into the movie before I started to do other stuff while the movie was playing; SMS texting and cleaning up the living room. The story in "Stormhouse" is just unfathomable uninteresting and unappealing. If you like horror movies or ghost movies, "Stormhouse" might not be a good choice. I was bored senseless.

STORMHOUSE is a British sci-fi/horror outing that flirts with the found footage genre in its telling of a secret military project accidentally releasing a supernatural entity inside a research station. Said supernatural entity then goes on a rampage of destruction while a female researcher tries to figure out a way to stop it.

So far so good, you might think. And the potential for an interesting film is right here. However, it's the awful execution that really lets this movie down. I understand that the budget was very tight, but is that any reason to shoot a film in near total darkness throughout? Aside from a couple of well-lit interludes, this is one of the darkest films I've ever seen. And shaky camera-work and pitch black background is not a good combination. Trying to make out what's supposed to be on the screen is half of the challenge here.

The rest of the film is an odyssey of attempted scare scenes and mild gore effects. The cast was unknown to me but are quite adequate for this type of film. It's just a pity that the film is so dark and difficult to watch, as it could have been a BLAIR WITCH contender had more care been taken with the look and feel of it.

Brought on-board a secret military base, a woman's attempts to investigate their supposed capture of a supernatural entity causes chaos on the base when it's accidentally released and goes on the rampage, forcing her to try to stop it.

This turned out to be quite a dreadful and really uninteresting effort without a lot really going for it. One of the only positives to this is the frankly original plot line concerning the capture of such an entity and what means is being done to control and contain it. Being able to remain controlled in a small enclosure with electronic impulses makes for a rather unique touch and allows this a pretty original touch that doesn't really get used all that often yet here makes some sense as the military would be one of the few places in the world where access to such material isn't out of the ordinary and seems pretty plausible throughout here. As well, the final half here tends to focus on the body-hopping means that the ghost employs to seek out revenge on the base for it's imprisonment and that leads to some mildly-tense sequences where it's in someone unexpectedly causing them to engage in all the horrific ideas and acts quite nicely. However, there's a lot really wrong here with the fact that this one tends to use a pretty hackneyed and cliché motive of the powers-that-be being unwilling to provide much in the way of explanations that would help this one be a little more understandable. Considering this is par for the course from the military, that's not all that out of the realms of realism where disinformation and withholding is pretty much par for the course in their history but here it just leads to endless scenes of her trying to actually do her job that she was specifically called there for yet keeps coming up with the bull-headed and refusal tactics from the military brass there which really begs the question of why she would want to stay there when what she's seen and been exposed to from their attitudes toward her would seem to really question why it was included in the first place. As well, this tends to really affect the pace of this with numerous scenes that go nowhere due to their refusal as well as tends to cause this to feel like a drag with hardly anything happening which is quite a common trait in many of the recent British efforts so this is no exception. Finally, the low-budget on display throughout this tends to cause the attacks to come off as quite lame and really ridiculous with hardly any real effort put into them, the special effects aren't that great and overall the film's centerpiece scenes are pushed so far into the back-half of the film it's too little too late as well as being plagued by ineffectiveness. These hold this back and really harm it overall.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

OK, so first of all the idea for this movie is great. I think the writer did a great job to come up with something original and yet very much within a horror movie genre. It had all the right horror clichés and yet had some bits we had never seen before. Is it a great movie? Not by a long shot, it feels cheap in places and some effects are bad quality. However there are moments when the obvious lack of resource adds to the fact it feels quite real. I thought the American actors who play Hayley and Mr Faber were the best in the movie, along with the British guy who played the major, by a yard stick! The rest were not interesting enough, I do not know if that's down to the writing, or the actor but I guess ultimately I want to blame the Director here. There is also one British guy who appears to be dubbed throughout the movie, an older character but because of this, it really jerks you out of the film. Fortunately he is not in the picture long enough. I read one of the user reviews saying it was too dark, I didn't agree. I thought the fact that the movie was dark was a real plus. I found it quite scary throughout but I do agree the sounds quality is just plain bad! I thought the moment when all the soldiers are singing the nursery rhyme and clapping was a little laughable but there were some genuine scares in here. Quite a few to be honest. And some nice twists in there too! Is it going to be the kinda movie that sets the world alight, I very much doubt it, it just doesn't have the full package. The quality is just not there. It was a refreshing piece though and worth a look for sure. I like scary and this movie had scary.

I cannot find any better word to describe this movie. For a low budget movie, they have done a great job. I am afraid I cannot agree with the negative reviews. To me the dark environment, the harmony between the audio and light effects was almost perfect. Unique story along with the great play makes it more interesting. I have watched this movie several times and I will keep on watching it at times when I really need a chilling movie to indulge in to. I am very sorry that this movie and all its crew have not been well appreciated as they truly deserve much better recognition. I just have one question and I still cannot figure that out is the connection between this event and the invasion of Iraq. As far as I could think, such event could happen at any time in the history. What was so specific about this movie and its link to the invasion? I could not see the connection or I might have missed something. Other than that, it was greatly done.