After a comic book collector, Packer Stanley (Avery Mayo), loses everything: his money, his home, and his fiance, he’s forced to find a new way to make money and get his life back on track. When he meets two sisters after renting a Storage Locker he believes he has the opportunity to make things right. Can he? Will he?
Every once in a while I stumble across a film where I question how the filmmakers determined that it was a good idea to submit it to the world. Sure, there’s always a level of doubt that exists when making a film, but sometimes I feel like there should be a little more reflection before they hit the veritable “send” button. Storage Locker falls into that category. I know that there’s something of a financial obligation, and that once filming begins, it’s hard to move on from it–but I can’t understand the decision to release this film.
There is so much wrong with Storage Locker, from the acting to the cinematography–and just about everything in between is just as frustrating. Starting with the acting: I struggled so much with this aspect of the film. Sure, Storage Locker likely operated on a shoestring budget, and Ray Spivey probably didn’t have many options when it came to casting or much of anything else–but the fact remains the same: not a single actor in this film was capable of supporting this film. This issue starts at the top and trickles down to the most insignificant roles in the film; and Storage Locker suffers greatly as a result.
The script doesn’t help the actors, however, as the dialogue always finds itself either being far too direct, or entirely too cheesy. There’s no balance, no middle ground here. It seems that this team, for lack of a better way of putting it, was completely incapable of supporting one another. The script hung the actors out to dry, and the actors were unable to rectify any of the issues presented to them. With that, Storage Locker is anything but successful, a massive challenge, and, honestly, a bit of a headache.
Though everything I mentioned made the film worse, the thing that bothered me the most was the way in which Storage Locker was filmed. Scenes were either far too long or cut off before they had a chance to develop. Everything becomes fractured, completely lacking cohesion–causing the film to be torn apart at the seams. There were times when the film almost looks like it’s headed in the right direction, like maybe Spivey found something to use going forward, and then he seemingly abandons it, never to speak of it again. The film is incredibly choppy, not just in the way that it was shot, but in how it was edited as well. Storage Locker lacks cohesion in more ways than one–but the inability to fully develop a thought (or to over develop an inconsequential one) is the most frustrating by far.
I hate to judge a film in the first few minutes, because in an hour and nearly fifty minutes so many things can change. However, the feeling I got from Storage Locker in the opening few minutes ultimately transcended the entirety of the film. None of the issues present in the film are ever rectified, and the tiniest glimmers of hope that exist just a handful of times are quickly abandoned and ultimately serve no purpose. I wanted to find something, anything to appreciate about this film–but other than one, single laugh–there was nothing.
Written & Directed by Ray Spivey.
Starring Mike Gassaway, Sydney Reyna, Avery Mayo, Ross Fisscher, Rick Deleon, etc.
⭐/10
