⭐️1/2
Strangers find themselves trapped in an underground storage facility and the bad times have a’started because along with their unprecedented situation, something monstrous is lurking around. Said something resides in Unit 13 (although, I’m not sure if they ever explicitly state that is the unit number) and it’s more than happy to slaughter the idiots who have found themselves trapped with it. It traces back to 1937 and the unsolved murders in Chicago of artifact thieves. A witness to those happenings claimed to see a bloody individual in some kind of trance wander off, disappearing and leaving the incident a cold case. It’s decades later and the A-American Storage “Alcatraz building” facility in Chicago is being visited by a seemingly random group of folks who have found themselves there for whatever convenient reason has put them in the sights of the thing that’s been lurking there for apparently eight decades. Two horny young folks, a cranky woman, a homeless man living in one of the units, a company executive and his frustrated employee make up the gaggle of destined dinner. The boss has passed up his hard-working employee for a promotion, giving it to his nephew. That frustration has turned the man homicidal and he beats his boss to death with a 2x4. The cranky woman sees a body dragged away and goes to investigate. She gets herself dragged into a unit. Opening credits hit set to some ear-abusing nu-metal music and feature some wanker doing a summoning ritual and filming it. This wanker doesn’t make it past the credits when he’s attacked by a tentacled something. One day passes from the events of the opening scene and we see two disheveled people gasping for air and wandering around in the dark. That flashes by and we join a group of college kids scheming about something called “the demon stone”. Michael is pumped to go into the storage facility where we’ve seen all this crap take place and find the ancient treasures he is so damn sure are hidden down there. His friends aren’t sure about it but his enthusiasm convinces them to come along. Kendra reads the troubling history of the artifacts aloud and the reluctant duo of the trio are convinced to join Michael on this trip. Kendra’s family is having some financial troubles, so she finds the opportunity hard to pass up. Back at the storage facility is more darkness and bad music. We then flashback ten hours earlier and see two women attempt to get into a storage unit with stolen bolt cutters after an employee there refuses to assist. One of the women is a sexy lass who we’ve seen panicking in the dark, so I don’t think this will go well. Other people are introduced, dates shift back and forth and a very simple scenario is made needlessly complicated by jumping around between dates and characters and I don’t believe it manages to keep its own narrative structured as well. Or it could have forgotten to add a time stamp. I could be wrong but I’m not rewinding because that’s way too much effort spent on this. Dude-bros share some harsh words, time stamps pollute everything, drama is emphasized but not well, the opening time jumps irritate the viewer into being angry at the movie before one rightfully should, repetitive deaths involve an unseen something dragging people into storage units, schmaltzy muzak accompanies melodrama as dour faces are made, the lights go out, the facility earns its nickname, people lose their cool, there’s evil goo or some shit and did I mention the fucking time stamps? It’s not confusing or anything, it just feels so damn pointless that it becomes offensive. Performances are mostly fine when they’re not asked to be convincingly sad… which an unexpected amount of them are (I guess content people don’t frequent storage facilities) and the monster is kept to POV shenanigans when it’s not offscreen dragging idiots into the shadows. It’s a shame too because the barely-seen cheap special effects (butcher shop splatter, puppetry) hit a sweet spot for my questionable tastes. “I am not afraid to punch a chick. Especially a crazy one.”
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