STORMHOUSE: GHOSTS GETS DRAFTED

It's always nice to see something new tossed into the mix when it comes to horror films. Well it's nice to see it when it works. When it doesn't it just becomes tedious and makes you wish something better had happened. Such is the case with STORMHOUSE.

Taking place 11 months before the invasion of Iraq it tells the story of a secret military base in England that has captured an entity, a ghost if you will. Professional ghost whisperer Hayley Sands has been brought in to assist with how to handle this entity and control it. Taken through the various stages of security she finally meets the man in charge, Maj. Lester.

Lester doesn't feel that Hayley will be able to accomplish much. Taking her to see the entity, she finds an electrified chain link fence that contains it. Watching videos of the enclosure she gets a glimpse of what it looks like when it allows itself to be seen. But seeing isn't what she needs to do. She needs to come in contact with it to understand it better.

Yeah, that's gonna have good results. Of course things go wrong, the entity escapes and begins possessing various members of the guard as well as an Iraqi citizen they tossed into its cage to see how it would react. This film features military stereotypes that are definitely not the good guys.

The biggest problem with this movie is the pacing. It's low and slow, taking far too much time to unfold and when it comes time for a payoff we get to glimpse pretty much nothing. Had the entity slowly possessed one member of the team and maneuvered them around it might have been more interesting. Or had the film gone the opposite route and shown the entity more often it would have been better. Instead it leaps from one person to the next and never quite gives us time to react.

This is not to say the movie is totally without merit. There are far too many horror films released these days that offer less story and more gore. Both are represented here but not to the point of being excessive. But with the story they have so much more could have been done with it. Still, for a $1 rental this movie could offer a few chills and some thought provoking ideas that would lead to a discussion of what would the military do if it actually did employ a creature like this.

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