Stormhouse

Year: 2011
Director: Dan Turner
Screenplay: Jason Arnopp, from a story by Dan Turner and Jason Arnopp
Starring: Katherine Flynn, Grant Masters, Patrick Flynn, Grahame Fox, Munir Khairdin, Martin Delaney, James Capel
Running Time: 88 minutes
Genre: Horror, supernatural, military

Summary: Stormhouse Military Base, England. May 2002: The British Army invoke and imprison a supernatural entity. Several months later, New York psychic and "ghost whisperer" Hayley Sands (Katherine Flynn) is brought to Stormhouse to try to contact the entity. However she finds that the base is running at a skeleton staff and the pressures of controlling the entity are starting to show on the soldiers and scientists working there. Hayley soon discovers that the entity, though contained, is very active and extremely dangerous and will stop at nothing to free itself and take revenge against those who captured it. At the same time, hard-nosed Major Anthony Lester (Masters) has his own plans for the entity.

Opinions: This low-budget British horror movie opens with a title card claiming that it was "inspired by true events". According to the director, the film was inspired by the rumours and folklore surrounding the old military base where the film was shot. The film is set almost entirely in the dimly lit, claustrophobic environment of the base. The fact that the nature of the entity itself isn't explicitly revealed on-screen works pretty well since the characters are never sure exactly where the thing is or what it is doing, until it strikes out. The tensions of life on the base are well-depicted and the rigours of military life add to the claustrophobic tension. However the military characters aren't explored very much, and another problem is that the film is frequently shot so darkly that it can be difficult to make out what is going on in places.
The film has a slow, deliberate build-up and for the most part keeps itself fairly low-key, coming across initially as almost a military version of Paranormal Activity (2002), with the amount of quiet surveillance camera footage and sudden loud noises after long periods of silence. However the low-key approach is put aside in the blood-drenched climax.
It's worth checking out for horror fans. It plays with a straight face and provides plenty of shocks and tension.



Katherine Flynn enters Stormhouse