STORAGE LOCKER (2023)

New on digital download and On Demand from Freestyle Media!
Directed/Written by Ray Spivey.
Starring Avery Mayo, Jeannie Carter-Cruz, Allen Danziger, Ross Fischer, Meredyth Fowler, Christian Garcia, Mike Gassaway, Bobbie Grace, Hannah Hufford, Jennifer Gunderson, Brian Jammer, Skeeta Jenkins, Ron Oliveira, Matthew Pervis, Fritz Reinig, Molly Spratt, Molly Spratt, Thep Tan, David Vidal Trevino

A young collector named Peter (Avery Mayo) is mugged on his way to purchase an expensive comic book which begins a series of events that lead to a strange plot to sacrifice souls and resurrect a lost loved one. All of it takes place at a strange storage facility owned by two well-to-do young women who happen to be witches.

Storage facilities are weird places. Rows and rows of similar looking hallways with doors that could spring open at any minute and lights that only illuminate when triggered. Anything could be lurking down these long halls of lockers and STORAGE LOCKER takes full advantage of the odd feeling one gets while roaming through the rows to find one’s own locker. There are a few sequences that really work well as an amorphous black shape speedily shreds through hapless victims lost in a maze of lockers. These scenes are well paced and works.

STORAGE LOCKER is a strange mix of comic books, fantasy, horror, and comedy. Reminiscent of Kevin Smith’s classics CLERKS and MALLRATS, STORGE LOCKER is filled with in-jokes, winks and nods to the camera referring to geek culture. Characters are named after popular comic book/geek characters like Fisk, Watson, Romita, and H. Potter. There’s a lot of comic book logic mixing genres with not a whole lot of explanation behind what’s going on. In STORAGE LOCKER depicts a world where witches exist and people don’t really bat an eye at it. Because super-hero tropes have become so commonplace in films, it has prepared audiences for this type of thing, but at the same time, the film creates a rather jarring feel when so much of the impossible occurs without much incident. But because the protagonist is so familiar with these strange things, it kind of fits and makes sense.

The result is sort of an uneven movie where certain genres are represented well and others feel either underrepresented or undercooked. I liked the fact that it centered on a comic book fan and though it does present him as rather flawed, it also depicts Peter as a good guy—sort of like the character he is obviously based on, Peter Parker. The humor works most of the time, specifically the integrated bits referring to comics. I also think writer/director Ray Spivey handles horror well as there are some well-orchestrated scare sequences.

Still, STORAGE LOCKER is pretty low budget, and some of the acting is not exactly the best by the supporting cast. I feel the magic and mysticism really isn’t represented cinematically well and simply used as a way to get out of impossible situations. I feel filmmaker Ray Spivey had high aspirations and big ideas STORAGE LOCKER, but just didn’t have the budget to achieve all of those goals. But if you’re a comic book fan or a fan of horror, you’re going to find a lot to appreciate with this often funny, often suspenseful genre mash-up.

Check out the trailer here!!